Tree supports: branching supports that save material

What tree supports look like and how they work

Instead of a continuous block under an overhang, a thin trunk grows and branches out exactly where support is needed. The branches avoid other parts of the model and end in small tips. Programs such as OrcaSlicer offer several styles, and there is a description in the wiki. Ordinary supports, by contrast, are a grid or walls that touch the part across its whole surface.

Advantages and disadvantages

• Less plastic and time on tall or organic parts, such as a figurine with an outstretched arm.
• Easier removal. The marks left by contact are smaller, so the surface under an overhang is often cleaner.
• Weaker under large flat overhangs. A flat ceiling is supported more reliably by ordinary supports, because they have more contact points.
• Fragile branches. On very thin parts they can shift during printing, which shows as a poor surface.

When you will notice them on the finished piece

On every surface where a support touched, a fine texture remains and now and then a small unevenness. The fewer the contacts, the less visible it is. If the look of a certain surface matters to you, turn the model through its orientation so that it faces away from the supports, or design it with a chamfer instead of a horizontal overhang.

Tree supports and accuracy. Tree supports work well on parts with overhangs at various places above one another, such as figurines, organic shapes or planters with decoration. They suit technical parts with exact flat overhangs less, such as brackets. The difference is not only in the result but also in the time needed to prepare the print, because branching is a harder calculation for the slicer.

Supports in your order

Supports are generated automatically and are included in the price, and you do not choose them separately. We choose these settings ourselves according to the model and material. In the calculator you choose the material, infill strength, scale and number of pieces, and the rest is in the price. If the model has no overhangs, no supports are created at all.