Support types for surface support regions include block, adaptive cell, rod, tree, and contour. Block, adaptive cell, and rod types are made up of interior walls that may or may not have a perimeter contour wall around them. Tree supports do not have contours. A contour support type is only a contour wall around the perimeter, with no interior walls.

Support types for line support regions are called line supports.

Figures of the support types are shown next. For these figures we've used our simple half sphere faceted part (.stl file) and oriented it in different ways to produce various support regions for demonstration.

Block Support

Block supports are grid-shaped supports consisting of regularly arranged rectangles or squares. The size of the rectangles or squares can be changed. Block supports are available for surface support regions only. See Parameters for Block Supports.

Adaptive Cell Support

Adaptive cell supports are arranged in a cubic pattern where the size of the cells reduce in defined intervals from the baseplate towards the part. The size of the cells can be reduced further via a cross-shaped wall within the cell. Adaptive cell supports are also distinguished by the attachments that connect the support cells to the part at the upper section of the support walls. Adaptive cell supports are available for surface support regions only. See Parameters for Adaptive Cell Supports.

Line Support

Line supports are thin walls along the center of the edge to be supported. Each wall is usually crossed by several supporting walls in the transition area to the baseplate, forming struts. Line supports are available for line support regions only. See Parameters for Line Supports.

Rod Support

Rod supports are bar-shaped supports that are distributed in different ways along the area to be supported, depending on the settings. Rod supports are available for surface support regions only. See Parameters for Rod Supports.

Tree Support

Tree supports are tree-shaped supports. The lower part of the tree support represents the trunk and the upper part of the tree support represents the branches of a tree. Tree supports don't use as much powder as the other support types and are especially useful for supporting the insides of holes. Tree supports are available for surface support regions only. See Parameters for Tree Supports.

Contour Support

A Contour support is a support wall around the perimeter of the support region only. There are no interior walls. See Parameters for Contour-only Supports.

Custom Support

The Custom Support button on the Create Support panel acts quite differently than the other support type buttons. Clicking on Custom Support activates the Design tools in SpaceClaim so that you can create your own support as a solid body. The advantage is that you can have both volumeless supports and solid support structures in the same file for export.