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The Support Reduction can be activated for every optimisation scenario separately under the Design Rules entry. Three different Support Reduction Modes (Passivelow, Reactive medium & Activehigh) can be chosen. Moreover, for Reactive and Active an Intensity value can be set up.
Build direction
The build direction is the z-direction of the Principal Coordinate System. For each scenario the Build Direction can be easily rotated and is then used for the Design Rules as well as material properties.
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For this use case a Support Reduction function is implemented which takes the needed support for additive manufacturing into account while optimising the part. The function got three different strategies which could be used. The three different strategies are:
Passivelow
Reactivemedium
Activehigh
The influence of the Support Reduction on the design increases from passive low to reactive to active high.
For reactive and active a second value can be defined, the intensity. The intensity can be chosen between 1 and 10, where 1 is very low and 10 is very high. Take in mind that a very high intensity could lead to a slower performance and unusual results. It is recommended to start with the first strategy and use the other two together with the intensity if the results are not satisfying.
Tip: Use the Shape Quality “Fine Tune” to get better results and get rid of artifacts that can occur during the support reductionLow has less impact and the design is close to an optimisation run without Support Reduction. In critical areas the support amount gets reduced. Medium and high have more impact on the design and reduce the needed support amount significantly.
In the next images an example part is used to display the difference between results of the strategies.
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