Recommended print settings, and what is never touched
The thirteen slicer settings a ShapeDis design can recommend for its shape, such as walls, infill, supports and brim, and why printer and filament settings are left alone.
Some settings depend on the shape of the part, not on your printer. A bracket that takes screws wants more walls than a decorative lid, and a part with a steep underside wants supports. When a design has such needs, ShapeDis lists them in the Print tab under Recommended settings, each with the reason in a few words.
They are recommendations you read and set in your slicer. The files you download are not sliced, so nothing is applied for you.
What it can recommend, and what it cannot
A design can recommend only the thirteen settings below. Anything else, including your printer, your nozzle and your filament, cannot be set by a design at all: the setting is refused. That is on purpose, because those depend on your machine and your spool, which the AI cannot see.
| Setting | What it is |
|---|---|
| Layer height (mm) | How thick each printed layer is. Thinner layers give a smoother surface and take longer. |
| Walls | How many outlines the printer draws around each layer. More walls make a stronger part, and matter most where screws bear on the plastic. |
| Top layers | How many solid layers close the top of the part. |
| Bottom layers | How many solid layers close the bottom of the part. |
| Infill | How much of the inside is filled, as a percentage. |
| Infill pattern | The pattern the inside is filled with. |
| Supports | Whether the slicer adds supports under overhangs. |
| Support type | What kind of supports it adds. |
| Supports from plate only | Whether supports may start only from the bed, or also from the part itself. |
| Support angle (deg) | How steep an overhang has to be before the slicer supports it. |
| Brim | Whether a flat brim is printed around the first layer to hold the part down, and how. |
| Brim width (mm) | How wide that brim is. |
| Seam | Where each layer starts and ends, which leaves a visible line on the part. |
How to read the list
- Each line shows the setting and the recommended value. When the slicer's own default is known, it is shown next to it, so you can see what changed.
- The reason sits under the value. For example, a design with screws might recommend more walls with the reason "screws bear on the walls".
- If there is nothing to recommend, the Print tab says "None yet. It prints with the defaults."
If a part needs supports, the Print tab also says so in its print notes, from the overhang check. See what the checks look at.
Where to go next
STL, STEP and 3MF says how to get the part into your slicer, and designing for 3D printing has the general rules behind these settings.
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