Encouraging Layout to Arrange Your Model One Way or Another...
Hello CZHunter and everyone else,
These images show (I hope) how I arranged my model to get Shapeways Print Layout to use different geometric orientations.
Nominal default arrangement (vertical in this case); model aligned with the X, Y, Z axis in the drawing program.
Figure 1 - Model Aligned
Model laying on one side arrangement; note the model is tilted (my term) from the X-Y plane by 5 degrees. This was enough to add a bunch of filler in the vertical alignment, so vertical is no longer the cheapest arrangement.
Figure 2 - Model Tilted
Model laying face up; the model was turned in the X-Y plane 45 degrees so that both the side and vertical arrangements have a ton of filler, making them more expensive.
Figure 3 - Turned
This is an introduction, if anyone wants to try this stuff. There are other effects, I can go into later, and some tricks I believe will persuade Layout to pick the desired geometric arrangement (that is until Shapeways provides the real function).
All the best,
Charles Sloane
PS, I believe Shapeways Layout in essence rolls the coordinate cube (Figure 4) onto each of the six sides X, X', Y, Y', Z, Z' and calculates the print cost of the model, it then picks the lowest cost.
Figure 4 - Nominal Geometric Space Planes of a Cartesian Coordinate System