Islands Detector

To Island Detector tool is located in the Prepare workspace.
It’s a subtool of the support tool on the left of the viewport.
It lets you detect,navigate and support all the islands on your model.

What’s an island? When you print your model you need to support it to keep it in place during the printing process.
The part of the model that start printing in the air, and are not connected yet to the rest of the model or the first parts of the model you print and are not connected to the build plate are the islands.
It’s mandatory to support them.

Tips:

  • Use this tool to your advantage to support automatically all the islands and then use manual support too for the rest of your model.
  • Use larger than normal supports on the first island at the start of your print, or a large shape.
  • Use multiple supports to anchor the larger islands, like a 3 points support structure.
  • Use smaller support if it’s fine details.
  • If the island is only 2-3 pixels and the layer above will catch it, you can avoid placing support that will make more damage.


Once the support tool is active, you can open the island detector by clicking on the island tab. (Press Shift + left click on a tab to pin it and keep it open even if you select another tab.)

Select a model, select the accuracy needed ( Fast, Normal, detailed, Real) and click on search to detect the islands.)
Real accuracy is only available to the Pro & Premium.

Once the research is finished

  • All the islands detected will be marked by a red geometry. (It won’t be exported or printed, it’s just a visual clue, you can delete them using the red trashcan icon)
  • you can click on the show button to navigate between the islands with the red arrows.
  • Click on the plus button to add support to the current island.
  • Click on Add supports to all islands if you want to speed up the process.



Tips:

  • The higher the accuracy, the longer the detection will take.
  • The detection is based on your layer height, with thinner layers, you will detect more islands.
  • You can hack the tool and select a thick layer thickness to detect the most massive islands, support them and then change the thickness to detect smaller ones and support them with smaller supports automatically.