for me it would be great if support geometry could be calculated in a way so it uses reachable areas below which are not overlapping.
In particular angles up to something like 45 degrees can be safely printed without support or actual bridging. Sometimes i do have prints where just a little bit of support in a 45-degree angle would be required but the software will fill everything from build platform to the top of the print.
Imagine you print something like this and support is generated right from the build platform:
What is actually needed is only this:
EDIT:
I have received a message from S3D Support that it is possible to tilt the model before generating the support pillar and then to rotate it back. This is indeed a good workaround for some cases.
Nevertheless in a lot of my designs I have structures like this, so the support would be needed at a 45 degrees angle in several directions:
(Please note this is only an excerpt from a larger model as otherwise this excerpt could for sure be printed upside down to mitigate the problem).
My rough proposal for an implementation would be to search for the nearest possible support base candidate feature for each bridged point in the support pillar in a cone-shaped range downwards. This way for each point that has to be supported the most suitable base feature needs to be found. The top angle of that cone would be the maximum overhang angle (or maybe some safe margin below that one) from the process settings.
Regards,
Thomas
