Zaf9670
Posts: 2
Joined: Sun Jul 02, 2017 1:29 am

Grid Snapping/Improved Auto Arrangement

Center and Arrange is a good option for "quick and dirty" placement but it doesn't always accommodate the geometry of the parts being printed.

The following suggestions may help.

1. Auto-Arrange Accounting for Model Geometry - Functionality similar to center and arrange that accommodates geometry. Placing higher edges closer together and auto rotating parts for efficient printing. If you're printing door stops for example, you would want all of the highest points to center back-to-back to allow the final layers to wrap up more quickly reducing travel time. If the doorstops were arranged with the final layer height being equal, you could arrange them into a square/pie shape to reduce print time or better utilize the print area.

2. Snap Arrangement for Manual Placement (Translate Model - W) - Give a snap to grid/ruler option to allow easier manual placement. This would keep axis aligned more easily as well to further keep print times in check for multiple objects. It also prevents the need to open the model menu and manually type in a particular axis across several parts.
plc268
Posts: 2
Joined: Tue Dec 05, 2017 10:51 pm

Re: Grid Snapping/Improved Auto Arrangement

+1

I print a lot of things that can nest inside each other, and while it's not too difficult to do, a quick and dirty option to auto rotate and nest would be useful.
CCristo
Posts: 1
Joined: Tue Dec 19, 2017 10:11 am

Re: Grid Snapping/Improved Auto Arrangement

+1 on this for me as well.

To add to this I'd like to add a request for snapping to 45°/90° (or more angles) during rotate (R key). 99% of the time when I rotate a model it's 90° and it would be nice to be able to snap to that instead of typing the value in or futzing with the mouse to get it exactly at 90°
kburgoyne
Posts: 3
Joined: Mon Jul 23, 2018 11:04 am

Re: Grid Snapping/Improved Auto Arrangement

+1

Another feature that'd be nice is for Simplify3D to try and respect the "rough" arrangement the user has created. Particularly in combination with being able to configure the amount of gap between parts during an auto-arrange.

I've been currently printing sets of parts which auto-arrange can't all fit on the bed only because it is using too big of a gap between them, and it's also possibly choosing the wrong number of parts to put into each row and column. I've seen this "odd" row-column arrangement of parts even when the gaps between them haven't been an issue.

My "helping" Simplify3D would be the most easily accomplished by allowing me to specify the gap between parts, and then trying to respect the rough arrangement into which I've already placed the parts. At a minimum, try to keep the number of rows and number of columns Simplify3D thinks I've arranged the parts into, and keep the parts in their row-column arrangement.

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