However, there may still be some situations in which everywhere may be required when using tree supports. When selecting touching buildplate, tree supports are still capable of supporting areas that regular supports would only be able to reach by using the Everywhere option. Selecting everywhere means that supports can print on top of the print itself whereas selecting touching buildplate means that tree supports will only start at the build plate and not be attached to the object anywhere but where it is supporting. Support Placement: Support placement is a setting also available for normal supports. Below are a couple of the more important settings and what they do. If you want to access them, they can be revealed or hidden in the configure Cura settings menu. If you want to learn how all of these settings work, check out the Ultimaker Cura Settings Guide plugin. These are very different to the tree supports used in Ultimaker Cura in both form and function.Īs with normal supports, you have access to additional settings you can modify to change how tree supports are generated. It’s worth noting that SLA printers also use something called tree supports. Once you have enabled tree supports in the settings and sliced the model, you can see how they will be printed by using the preview view. For this reason, it's recommended to use normal supports when printing soluble supports with PVA. The smaller parts of tree supports near the top of each branch can also be difficult to print so poorly calibrated printers may have trouble printing these areas successfully and even well-calibrated printers may have difficulty when using hard-to-print materials like PVA and flexible materials. The only major downside to tree supports is a large increase in slicing times as the calculations that need to be made to generate tree supports are more complex than those made for normal supports. In prints that use material, you can also expect to see lower overall printing times. You can expect to see significantly less material usage on complex prints that require lots of supports. As far as that goal goes, they were a success. Tree supports were originally created to minimize how much waste material is used when printing supports. This behavior also means that tree supports touch the print in far fewer places than regular supports which results in a cleaner print with less surface imperfections. Tree supports have one big trick up their sleeves, and that’s the ability to print at an angle, allowing it to wrap around a print and support hard to reach places. If you want to familiarize yourself with normal supports and their related settings, check out our dedicated article on the topic. We will primarily be talking about tree supports and how they can be used in this article. But in cases like this, tree supports are often a better alternative. There are workarounds in some cases and tweaking your support settings can reduce the surface damage. That can lead to blemishes not only where the print needs support, but also on the area directly below. The problem with this is that on a geometrically complex print with lots of overhangs, supports may need to be placed on top of some surfaces of the print to reach the overhang. Result can look almost exactly like the branches of a tree. Only a thin tip of each branch touching the areas that needs supporting.

Tree supports also branch off at an angle with

Supports wrap around a print, starting thicker towards the bottom of the printĪnd getting thinner as it goes up.

Unlike standard supports that generateĭirectly below the areas that need to be supported and nowhere else, tree WhenĮnabled, they are generated around a print to help support areas that would be Tree supports are a type of support structure available in Ultimaker Cura. On certain models, tree supports can use less material, be easier to remove, and they can leave your model with little to no scarring. Luckily, Ultimaker Cura has a second type of support structure called tree supports. You often need to tweak your support settings to get the best results and even then, they can still be difficult to remove and often result in blemishes on the surface of your model. When used properly, supports allow you to print almost anything using an FFF printer.

Ultimaker cura tree support