Chapter 3 — Shape Tools

The Shape tab has more than just the modelling-mode picker. This chapter covers the auxiliary tools that apply across every mode: wall and floor controls, the dimensions overlay, the pottery wheel (experimental), and the build-plate / printer matching.

Wall & Floor

Every printable vase is hollow. The Wall & Floor panel sits below the modelling-mode panels and controls the inner cavity:

Closed Solid (default ON) — when on, the model is a hollow vessel with the inner cavity carved out. When off, the model is a fully filled solid (rare; useful for paperweights or architectural samples).
Wall Thickness (mm) — gap between the outer and inner surface. Typical clay-print walls are 2.5–4 mm.
Bottom Thickness (mm) — thickness of the solid base, measured upward from y=0. The cavity only opens above this height.
Open Top (default ON) — leaves the rim open. Uncheck for a closed dome (perfect for sealed bottles or sealed-base sculpture).

These four settings drive every mesh path: revolution, single-object loft, and the SDF-based multi-object loft all honour them identically.

Base Settings

The Base Settings panel (below Wall & Floor) tunes the printed foot/skirt — the few millimeters of clay laid down at the very base of the print to lock the part to the build plate:

Base Offset (mm) — radial distance of the skirt from the model wall.
Base Height (mm) — physical height of each base layer.
Base Layers (1–4) — how many extra base layers to stack.
Base Ratio (%) — extrusion-volume multiplier for the base layers (some clay needs 150–200% on the first layers to avoid gaps).

These are baked into the G-code on export — they don't change the viewport mesh.

Dimensions overlay

Toggle the ↕ Dimensions button in the top-right viewport overlay (or press its hotkey) to show a comprehensive measurements panel.

Dimensions overlay — anatomy rings + bounding cage

What you get:

Floating corner panel — Height, Base ⌀, Top ⌀, Max ⌀, Wall, Volume. Toggle between mm and inches with the mm ↔ in switch in the panel.
Bounding cage — 12 thin grey edges around the model. Three of them are colour-coded red (X), green (Y), blue (Z) with width / height / depth labels.
Anatomy rings — five horizontal hoops at named landmarks:
- A — Rim (very top)
- B — Neck (auto-detected upper local minimum)
- C — Belly (the widest point)
- D — Waist (auto-detected lower local minimum, if present)
- E — Foot (bottom)
- Each ring shows its letter + diameter label tracking with the camera.

The rings adapt to your profile — if there's no clear neck, the system falls back to even spacing. Useful when discussing a design ("can we narrow B by 4 mm?") because the language is unambiguous.

Pottery Wheel (experimental)

Settings → Experimental → tick Pottery Wheel to expose the Tools menu's 🏺 entry. When enabled, the model spins on a virtual wheel and you sculpt by clicking on it.

Pottery wheel session

Tools available (click in the tool palette, then click on the spinning model):

Push / Pull — radial deformation. Push squeezes the wall inward, Pull bulges it outward.
Carve / Smooth — depth-only changes. Carve digs a local hollow, Smooth flattens nearby variation.
Widen / Narrow — height-band scaling. Widen splays a band outward, Narrow pinches it.
Local Carve / Pierce / Stud — per-click marks at the cursor's surface position. Pierce punches a hole all the way through the wall; Stud places a raised dome.

Quality is forced down to Medium during pottery sessions so each spray sample fits in the 250 ms refresh budget. When you exit the wheel the model auto-rebakes at High.

Undo per-stroke is captured automatically. Press Ctrl+Z (or use the toolbar undo) to roll back the most recent gesture.

Build plate & printer matching

The build plate is the translucent ground plane in the viewport — it's sized to the printer you've selected so you can sanity-check that the model fits before exporting.

Set the printer in the Settings → Defaults → Printer dropdown (or load it on a per-project basis). Built-in presets cover:

Bambu Lab — X1, X1 Carbon, P1S, P1P, A1, A1 mini, H2D, H2.
Prusa — MK4, MK4S, XL, MINI+, MK3S+.
Elegoo — Neptune 4, Neptune 4 Pro, Centauri Carbon.
Eazao (clay) — Sevenlite, Mega, Zero, Zero V2, Octopus, Pro, Q1, M500, M600, M700.
WASP (clay) — DeltaWASP 2040, 4070, 60100 LDM.
3D Potter (clay) — Micro 10, Scara V4, Skywalker XL.
Stoneflower (clay) — 3D Pro, Mini.
Cerambot (clay) — Eazao, Power.
Custom — set your own width / depth / diameter / height.

Round build plates (delta printers, most clay machines) display as a disc; rectangular plates display as a rectangle. The dimensions are real millimetres, so the model's reported height / diameter directly compare.

If your model exceeds the build volume in any axis, the export-quality mesh is still produced — but the Analysis tab flags an "exceeds plate" warning so you know.

Analysis tab

The Analysis sidebar tab runs a structural-stability check on the current model and reports a 0–100 stability score plus a list of per-region warnings. It's the "is this thing actually printable?" sanity check.

Analysis tab — stability score + warnings

Click ⊙ Analyze Model to (re)run the check. The result panel shows:

Stability Score — a coloured 0..100 ring. Green ≥ 70 is generally printable; amber 40–70 may print with care; red < 40 is likely to collapse during print.
Verdict line — short summary ("Model appears structurally sound for printing" / "Model is top-heavy, expect collapse near layer X" / etc).
Per-region warnings — each warning carries a height position, a severity (Info / Warning / Critical), and a short message. Common ones: "Overhang angle (49°) at height 2 % exceeds safe limit (45°)", "Wall thickness drops below 1.5× nozzle diameter at height 78 %", "Top-heavy — top 30 % wider than bottom 30 %".

Re-run after every significant edit. Analysis is cheap (a few hundred ms even on heavy models).

Printer tab (experimental)

Settings → Experimental → tick Printer Path Simulation to expose the Printer sidebar tab. It does two things: it shows the build plate match (manufacturer + model dropdowns, plate shape, dimensions, and a green "Model fits the build volume" / red "Exceeds plate" indicator), and it runs a layer-by-layer toolpath simulation with gravity-aware droop prediction so you can spot collapses before committing clay.

Printer tab — path simulation result

Build plate group:

Manufacturer / Model dropdowns — pick from the built-in catalog (Bambu Lab, Prusa, Eazao, WASP, 3D Potter, Stoneflower, Cerambot, or Custom). The plate dimensions auto-fill; the green band confirms the fit.
Plate Shape toggle — Rectangle / Round. Use Round for delta printers and most clay machines.
Width / Depth / Build Height — editable when "Custom" is the selected model.

Path Preview group — the tunable parameters that drive the simulator:

Layer Height (mm) / Clay Diameter (mm) — match your printer.
Clay Stiffness (1 = round, 0 = flat) — wet clay slumps; dry clay holds shape. Slider drives how much each layer flattens under the next one's weight.
Droop Coefficient / Gravity — gravity multipliers, larger = more sag.
Edge Drop / Edge Pullback — how far overhanging beads sag and whether they retract toward the wall as they sag.
Settle Bias — additional compaction on lower layers from the weight above.
Tube Smoothing — how many neighbouring segments share the droop calculation (smooths the simulated tube).
Per-Cell Jitter — adds organic per-bump variation so identical texture cells don't all melt the same way.
Steps Per Revolution — path resolution.
Show Ideal Path — overlay the zero-droop reference path in cyan alongside the simulated (sagged) path so you can see exactly where the model is misbehaving.
Render as Clay Tube — full clay-coloured tube (default) vs a thin colour-coded line.
Clay Color — picks the swatch shown for the rendered tube.

Hide Path removes the simulation overlay; Show redraws. Re-render after any model change to see the updated prediction.

The simulator runs on the threadpool so the UI stays responsive during long calculations. Heavy textures + Cut Through can take a few seconds.