Better tree support for pointy overhangs: Cradle Generation #1880

ThomasRahm · 2023-05-07T22:59:00Z

Tree Support Cradle Generation

One issue of tree supports is that pointy overhangs are more prone to failing. This PR tries to solve this by surrounding the model with lines orthogonal to the model outline.
The model is not densely surrounded with support, as this would make the support impossible to remove without damaging the model.

It works great in my tests, but i do have some stringing issues with my printer, which may cause the result to be better than with a well tuned printer.

One of my issues is that the the cradle currently has more settings than i think it should.
I am very open to further feedback, as currently this feature has way to many settings.
The settings are currently added using a dummy plugin found here

Settings:

Enforce Initial Layer Diameter

Enlarge tips so that the branch could reach Initial layer Diameter. This should improve the tree supports ability to support areas very close to the buildplate. Enabling support skin or using support roof is strongly recommended.

Disabled:

Enabled:

Cradle Height

The height of the cradle to support pointy overhangs. The cradle will stop generating if the pointy part of the model connects with another part of the model that either rests on the buildplate or already has its own cradle. Set to 0 to disable.

Small Cradle Height:

Large Cradle Height:

Minimum Cradle Height

If a cradle smaller than this would generate, it just doesn't.

Cradle Lines

Amount of lines that should be generated around the model.

Low Amount Of Cradle Lines:

Large Amount Of Cradle Lines:

Cradle Length

Length of the lines that generate around the model.

Small Cradle Length:

Large Cradle Length:

Cradle Line Width

Width of the lines that generate around the model. I would just hard-code this to line width.

Small Cradle Line Width:

Large Cradle Line Width:

Cradle Threshold

Maximum area a pointy overhang may have for the cradle to generate.

Cradle Base Support Area Diameter

Size of the tips below an pointy overhang overhang. Also the size of tips below lines if Large Cradle Line Tips is active and the roof base if Cradle Roof Type is Large Cradle and Base

Small Cradle Tip Size:

Large Cradle Tip Size:

Cradle XY Distance

Distance of the cradle lines from the model, dependent on the height of cradle lines below it (Cradle XY distance)

Visualisation:

Cradle Z Distance

Distance between cradle lines and the support that supports them. Makes cradle lines easier to fold over.

Large Cradle Line Tips

Generate large tips below the cradle lines.

Tree Support Large Cradle Line Tips Off:

Tree Support Large Cradle Line Tips On:

Cradle Roof Type

How the cradle behaves if roof is enabled.

Regular Support

Cradle:

Cradle and Base:

Large Cradle and Base:

Support Skin Height

Height of Support Skin generated to support cradle/interface/model parts that would fall inside of a support area. What i call Support Skin is just a support area with high density zig-zag infill.

Small Support Skin Height:

Large Support Skin Height:

Support Skin Line Distance

Distance between the lines for said high density support infill.

Small Support Skin Line Distance:

Large Support Skin Line Distance:

Support Skin for Tips Threshold

Generate support skin for any tips that have at least this diameter.

Idea behind it

The support structure connects to the model from multiple sides, holding it in tension. These connections are thin (one or two layers). This occurs not only at the beginning of a pointy overhang (where the model itself may not be stable yet), but also further up (configurable with the cradle XY distances and heights).
When removing the support these connection points are twisted off (basically by just folding over the cradle lines).
The benefit to holding the model in tension over just surrounding it with material is that it should reduce the chances of the model tipping over slightly (which could enable the nozzle to crash into the model, and rip it of)
To improve ease of removal these lines do not touch the model, put are printed closer than the tolerances allow (distance of 0.1mm or 0.15mm).
If soluble support it could be possible to reduce the distance to 0mm and make it much thicker than a few layers. I cant test this though.

Currently known limitations:

If custom angles are set for the infill the result may not be what the end-user expects.
Enforce Initial Layer Diameter may cause an effectively higher Branch Density. When tips are multiple mm large, placing one tip ever few cm seems counter productive.
Cradle XY distance can be larger than intended if the line hits the model at a small angle, especially if the model surface is uneven. This is rare though.
As cradle lines that would collide with branches are removed, but cradle lines are elongated to prevent overhang at the end of the line, some lines may be larger than Cradle Length

Things that should be done

Reducing the amount of settings (I would like some input in that regard)
Evaluating what the default settings should be.
Try to shorten cradle lines that collide with branches before removing them. Shorten cradle lines that are longer than they should be if the reason that they are longer is a cradle line above it that was removed.
Refactoring to improve code quality.
Looking over and solving/deciding what to do for all "Todo" comments.
Improve performance (Currently it about doubles the IncreaseArea time if cradles are present)
Improve merge behavior (Currently branches that could collide with a cradle line will not merge)

…quest with more information soon.

…ort is used.

…e is disabled, based on support_tree_roof_cradle setting.

…ips to be slightly too large

ThomasRahm · 2023-05-22T10:29:14Z

I added another setting:
Tree Support Support Skin for Tips Threshold: Generate support skin for any tips that have at least this diameter.
I got my new direct drive hot-end working: The pointy overhang support feature needs a pretty well tuned xy distance/minimum xy distance distance to work.
Most people will not have been tuning that parameter, so it is definitely an advanced feature. With my new hot-end i had success with minimum xy distance set to 0.2mm. It should be where a tolerances test with this distance would not fuse up in a way that it is too hard to separate, but also not too easy.

This brings me to a question: Should how close the cradle can get to the model be independent of xy distance ?
It would not be too hard to do (as long as z distance stays the same as i would just offset the collision), but it would be yet another setting.

…f it is larger than the (hardcoded) minimum fake roof area when roof is disabled

…of that) sometimes when the influence area becomes very small, caused by a very small hole in the avoidance.

# Conflicts: # include/SupportInfillPart.h # include/TreeSupportTipGenerator.h # include/TreeSupportUtils.h # src/FffGcodeWriter.cpp # src/SupportInfillPart.cpp # src/TreeModelVolumes.cpp # src/TreeSupport.cpp # src/TreeSupportTipGenerator.cpp

…o supply the UI with the settings

Implemented significant changes to the Conan file and GitHub workflow files in order to increase stability and maintainability. The Conan file now fetches versions and requirements from a new data source, while unnecessary or redundant code in the workflow files has been removed or simplified. This ensures smoother implementation and easier troubleshooting for future needs. Contributes to CURA-11440

Contributes to CURA-11440

# Conflicts: # include/sliceDataStorage.h # src/TreeSupportTipGenerator.cpp # src/sliceDataStorage.cpp

…line count by one to improve strength of support skin.

of overshoot of tips below it.

…fix xy distance for missing lines because of cradle z distance.

…es. Prevents some kind of overlapping roof lines.

…revents overlapping roof lines.

… nested holes.

…pport_2 # Conflicts: # CMakeLists.txt # include/FffGcodeWriter.h # include/SupportInfillPart.h # include/TreeModelVolumes.h # include/TreeSupport.h # include/TreeSupportElement.h # include/TreeSupportTipGenerator.h # include/TreeSupportUtils.h # include/sliceDataStorage.h # include/utils/polygon.h # src/FffGcodeWriter.cpp # src/SkirtBrim.cpp # src/SupportInfillPart.cpp # src/TreeSupport.cpp # src/TreeSupportTipGenerator.cpp # src/bridge.cpp # src/sliceDataStorage.cpp # src/support.cpp # src/utils/polygon.cpp # src/utils/polygonUtils.cpp

…ions that were lost by the merge (because they were in the poylgons class)

…ance settings.

…pport_2

…ier meshes are stored and fix a small bug preventing non drop down support meshes from slicing correctly

…. Also prevent parallel for from being used in a nested way.

…ted towards the model, or away from it.

ThomasRahm added 4 commits May 7, 2023 04:45

Add feature to better support pointy overhangs. Will create a pull re…

108238f

…quest with more information soon.

Fix support_skin_line_distance setting not working.

c7b6aaa

Fix support being sprinkled on top of angled interface when tree supp…

0997c3b

…ort is used.

Fix Tree Support Cradle generation causing a crash.

12f2572

github-actions bot added the PR: Community Contribution 👑 Community Contribution PR's label May 7, 2023

ThomasRahm added 3 commits May 8, 2023 23:31

Fix crash when support blockers are used.

624991d

Fix Cradle Tip generation behaving unexpectedly when support interfac…

59531dc

…e is disabled, based on support_tree_roof_cradle setting.

Improved Tree Support Support Skin Generation and fixed bug causing t…

dc64f93

…ips to be slightly too large

ThomasRahm marked this pull request as ready for review May 22, 2023 10:36

ThomasRahm and others added 20 commits July 13, 2023 14:57

Fix Support Floor being activated to sometimes cause slicing to freeze.

7e0191e

Fix Minimum support area not working always when X/Y overrides Z or i…

810d6ea

…f it is larger than the (hardcoded) minimum fake roof area when roof is disabled

Fix branches being wrongly regarded as an error (and removed because …

2538d86

…of that) sometimes when the influence area becomes very small, caused by a very small hole in the avoidance.

Fix issues cause by merge and fix issue caused by previous refactor.

f3ff9f4

Change the way settings are retrieved to enable using a fake plugin t…

e0e19ab

…o supply the UI with the settings

Add first version of support_tree_cradle_xy_distance setting.

1a7f9c3

Revert update of fmt and spdlog

b7d7316

Contributes to CURA-11440

Fix fractional roof not working correctly with cradles

dffcecf

Fix cradle xy distance

8cefce5

Fix cradle sometimes not being supported correctly

36db8a2

Merge branch '5.6' into tree_support_2

c9cda5a

# Conflicts: # include/sliceDataStorage.h # src/TreeSupportTipGenerator.cpp # src/sliceDataStorage.cpp

More cradle fixes

b16c159

Some fixes to support skin

1ae92f2

Fix crashes caused by tree support.

9e61337

Fix compile error caused by previous commit

81eff9e

Made cradle xy distance a vector to enable more flexibility

d357561

Changed support skin pattern to ZigZag and reduced support skin wall …

b25a88e

…line count by one to improve strength of support skin.

Fix bug related to cradle and fractional roof again

c983b58

ThomasRahm added 12 commits May 1, 2024 22:38

Refactoring to enable adding cradle to regular support later

ba8208d

Fix roof cradle base calculation creating non-supportable bases

2cec577

Fix rounding errors in handleCradleLineValidity.

a79c0de

Fix support of cradle lines by fixing the reduction

b07e7fd

of overshoot of tips below it.

Fix cradle roof base z distance if no fractional roof is present and …

9aa2fad

…fix xy distance for missing lines because of cradle z distance.

Fix tip density for cradle lines if cradle tips size is small.

5efba20

Fix roof generating for areas that are handled by cradle bases or lin…

fbbf9fa

…es. Prevents some kind of overlapping roof lines.

Ensure that cradle lines can not intersect with already added roof. P…

9d1ebf2

…revents overlapping roof lines.

Fix guaranteed line below large cradle base.

60d8b95

Fix missing cradle lines if cradle line count is odd

d77e87b

Fix issue causing support lines to overlap with the model

ae25532

Fix issue causing support skin lines to overlap with the model

fba4d7b

ThomasRahm force-pushed the tree_support_2 branch from b9ad4e7 to 9beb89a Compare June 3, 2024 21:24

Ensure support skin is generated below holes that can not be removed

798ad56

ThomasRahm force-pushed the tree_support_2 branch from 9beb89a to 798ad56 Compare June 3, 2024 21:25

ThomasRahm added 15 commits June 4, 2024 00:11

Merge remote-tracking branch 'upstream/5.7' into tree_support_2

cc8147b

Fix regression causing hole removal to not work correctly.

11b4a76

Change non-removable hole detection, to prevent potential issues with…

6664a4f

… nested holes.

Fix crash occurring when cradle z distance is smaller than z distance.

5e03048

Adapt to new Shape and LinesSets after merge. Also add back all funct…

c0e46cb

…ions that were lost by the merge (because they were in the poylgons class)

Fix cradle lines stopping because of too long jumps caused by xy dist…

ae63e19

…ance settings.

Merge remote-tracking branch 'refs/remotes/upstream/5.8' into tree_su…

4b9a595

…pport_2

Fix for issue Ultimaker/Cura#19586 in the cradle branch

ad51551

Add ability to manually place cradles, refactor the way support modif…

6e73eb8

…ier meshes are stored and fix a small bug preventing non drop down support meshes from slicing correctly

Add initial support for cradles if normal support is used.

5a7a068

Fix cradle generation wrongly being called twice if tree support is used

85bca65

Improve resiliency if TreeModelVolumes is used without precalculating…

06c6488

…. Also prevent parallel for from being used in a nested way.

Fix support for cradle being placed to far up if the cradle is roof.

340e70f

Implement functionality to select whether cradle lines should be prin…

d7d1f71

…ted towards the model, or away from it.

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Better tree support for pointy overhangs: Cradle Generation #1880

Better tree support for pointy overhangs: Cradle Generation #1880

ThomasRahm commented May 7, 2023 •

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ThomasRahm commented May 22, 2023

Better tree support for pointy overhangs: Cradle Generation #1880

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Better tree support for pointy overhangs: Cradle Generation #1880

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ThomasRahm commented May 7, 2023 • edited Loading

Tree Support Cradle Generation

Settings:

Idea behind it

Currently known limitations:

Things that should be done

ThomasRahm commented May 22, 2023

ThomasRahm commented May 7, 2023 •

edited

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