Guides
Getting started
The short path, with figures: units → upload → tag → queue → download.
Garbage in → garbage out. Wrong units, missing supports, or load on the wrong face will still produce a pretty mesh. Start with Get good results before you spend credits.
Happy path (5 minutes)
- Sign in — live runs need a wallet.
- Open Study. In Setup pick Study type (Lighten this part, Design in a box, or Stress check first). Set File units to match the CAD file (usually mm), then click Choose file or drop a STEP (preferred) or STL on the viewer.
- Choose a Material in Setup. In Fixtures & loads, pick Support (fixed) and click a face; then pick Load, click a different face, and set force (N). Prefer STEP face picks over STL paint. For bolt holes, raise Shell above Auto (Supports & loads). If Preserve and Obstacle are backwards, Reverse keep-in / keep-out in Selections before you Queue.
- Leave Validation FEA on for topology. Start on Draft until deformation looks sane. Prove the setup with Stress check before Lighten. Set Min wall near your printable minimum. Adjust Keep % if you want more or less material left.
- Check the credit estimate → click Queue → watch Dashboard → download STL / artifacts.
The four moves
The whole setup is four moves. Each figure below shows the concept exactly as the workbench presents it.
How Exoform maps to tools you know
Engineers coming from Fusion Generative, Altair Inspire, nTop, or SimScale will recognize the same setup tree — we use plain labels:
- Support ≈ Fixed / Fixture / Constraint
- Load ≈ Force on a face (magnitude in N)
- Preserve ≈ Non-design / keep solid (pads, holes)
- Obstacle ≈ Keep-out / Fusion “Obstacle”
- Lighten this part / Design in a box ≈ Inspire design space (carve the solid) vs grow in a box
- Keep % ≈ Inspire mass target (% of design space)
- Draft → High ≈ mesh quality presets (auto-mesh)
Deep guides
- Get good results — Pre-queue checklist with good vs bad Shell and Min wall figures.
- Tools vs peers — Shell, Min wall, Clearance, multi-load, density scrub — what we match.
- Pre-check & FEA first — Fusion-style setup status + Stress check before topology.
- Density Explorer — Density Explorer scrub, export CAD at threshold, or re-run with Keep % / Min wall.
- Geometry & units — STEP vs STL, watertight solids, declaring length units.
- Supports & loads — Fixtures, forces, Preserve, Obstacle, Shell thickness, Clearance — good vs bad.
- Design space — Stress check / Lighten this part / Design in a box — which tools apply.
- Quality & mesh — Draft → High and what each tier changes.
- Topology — Min wall, Shell, Keep %, Validation FEA, symmetry.
- Reading results — What to trust after a solve — and what not to.
- Export & print — STL / 3MF / STEP and the path to the slicer.
- Additive Manufacturing — Enterprise lattices after a Study mesh.