New user with a few questions and suggestions

#1

Hi

I’m a hobbyist with a new Mars 3 working my way through Formware. Discovered Formware through the author of a figurine I bought and printed. Really liking Formware so far (compared to Lychee). I have a few questions and feature suggestions as I work my way through learning Formware. Hope it’s OK to put all in one post.

  1. The license is perpetual right?! What is the upgrade policy if I purchase a license? Do I have to pay for upgrades? Is there a planned upgrade frequency and/or road map? Lychee has a subscription model. I can understand the business rationale but as a simple hobbyist I’m not a fan.

EDIT: Also what is the difference between the Personal and Commercial versions. As a hobbyist, if I design and print a figurine, can I sell it if I use the personal license? Also the Personal and Commercial versions both state different things in the “Best for Printing” blurb. Does this mean the capabilities are different in each? Is the Personal version a nerfed form of the Commercial Version?

  1. Is there a way to center and maximize the view (Fit I guess). I find myself often moving and zooming to get a big, overall view of a supported mesh.
  2. Are there any settings for Illumination Intensity? I recall reading some threads about this (Masking??) but can’t find anything in the UI.
  3. Any details on the curing time calculations? They look like parameters for kinetics of chemical reactions. What form do the equations take and how are the parameters determined. (Just curious as I’ve touched on stuff like this in the past). Practically speaking, the layer time override is perfect for getting reasonable time estimates.

Feature Suggestions

  1. Remember window size, placement, layout, folder settings such as slice folder between sessions. I’m always resizing etc. every time I open Formware.
  2. Add a Recent File function to enable quick loading of a saved project. Saves me having to drill through folder hierarchies as I switch between projects.
  3. Add a Print History Log with Notes ability. Lychee has a basic History function which can be used to keep notes on the performance of a print.
  4. Add some more tokens to slice output file names, for example, #project_name#, #exposure_time#, #print_profile_name#

Oddly enough that’s all I’ve got at this time. The more I use Formware the more I learn and like it!

Regards
Chris

#2

So can anyone from Formware answer the first question at least. That’s the most important. Thanks.

#3

Hi Chris,

Here’s the answers:

  1. Yes it’s perpetual. No we didn’t have paid updates the last 5 years and it’s not directly planned.

So this is more my personal opinion, we don’t like stuff working with a limited time frame or subscriptions either. It will depend a bit on how the market will evolve coming 1-2 years. In the end we strive to support the active users as good as we can. If that requires introducing a ‘priced’ update so we can keep paying the bills, it can always be considered. In the end we are not running a charity :wink: Of course we can’t look into the future and we try and treat sold products as fair as possible.

Commercial licenses are required if you have an organizational or business entity. What that is depends on your country. The capablities are the same.

  1. Zoom to fit no. We do have zoom to percentage. Or just press ctrl+p for perspective projection (that’s what I personally use a lot). But i’ll take the suggestion; perhaps to add a zoom to fit (instead of fit to build platform)

  2. Yes there is a mask feature. I’m not 100% sure it’s active on your machine. Be disable stuff to make it simpler for the user. If you want to play with a mask feature; please add a ‘default’ machine. It has everything enabled. You would just need to copy the dimensions and slice-output format from your machine. Print profiles can also be copied in 1 click.

  3. It’s axis movement * speed etc. As you would expect. But it’s very hard for us to do this correctly for 300 machines. So that’s why the override exists.

features suggestions:

  1. thx.
  2. noted. already on todo list…
  3. noted. good point.
  4. also noted. was suggested by another user as well; so definitely in next release.

kind regards
Elco

#4

Hi Elco

Thanks for the quick and clear response. I completely understand your business needs re pricing and, of course, have no issues with it. I just wanted to be clear on the situation at this present time. Also it’s now clear to me that I’m doing the right thing by getting a Personal license because I am not a business or organizational user.

btw - Loving the software so far. I just printed some simple ring bands for my daughter and the circular support array was magic!

Kind Regards
Chris

#5

Great suggestions, I ditto them all. :slight_smile:

#6

Thanks for sharing, I am new here and learning a lot from this community.