About no-build zones

Applies to 2020.2 Update and later

Volumes on the build platform that mustn't be occupied by parts

No-build zones look and function the same everywhere, on regular part platforms and machine workspaces alike.

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What is it?

No-build zones are volumes that forbid placing any part volumes such that they intersect with them. This is enforced by preventing automated processes such as packing from claiming the space of the no-build zones and by notifying you if you cause an intersection manually.

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What are the key benefits?

  • No-build-zones are placeholders within Netfabb and are not actually printed.
  • Parts can be freely converted from and into no-build zones. (Zones already defined by a machine excluded.)
  • No-build zones have their own section in the project tree, and you can toggle the visibility of them individually and as a group, both through their visibility icons, the menu option View > Toggle no-build zone visibility, as well as using the global keyboard shortcut Shift+N.
  • No-build zones are observed during toolpath creation in machines, when moving parts to Slices, when running packers, and in the support editor.

In this example, the zones at the corners are machine-specific, the zones along the sides are user-defined. All are listed in the project tree. The user-defined zones are also explicitly set to be observed by the support editor.

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How do I access them?

Part platforms, including those provided by machine workspaces, have a No-build zones section in the project tree. Moving parts into such sections turns those parts into no-build zones:

Custom no-build zones are stored in a FABBPROJECT file, and they are also storable with a customized machine in My Machines.

In addition, some machines come with zones already defined. These zones are part of the machine workspace definition and cannot be modified.

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