Glossary

Welcome to the CuraEngine Glossary for dummies!

You're very welcome to contribute:

• Add your terms (alphabetical order)
• Improve existing terms descriptions

3D Printing Terms

• Layer: 3D printing is done in thin layers of material. These layers are 2D shapes which when stacked vertically, form a 3D object.
• Retraction: When the printer's material feeder runs backwards for a short amount of time to pull material away from the hot end. This prevents passive oozing/dripping of materials in-between actual printed lines.
• Travel: A movement without printing any filament.

Cura Engine Terms

• Combing: A movement that tries to avoid crossing walls
• Link: Result of the mechanism to detect if there is any overlap between lines, if there is a link, there is an overlap
• Polygon: A 2D shape created by the intersection of a horizontal plane at a given height "slicing" through a 3D object. Each layer (see above) is comprised of one or more polygons, which form the object's walls (see below).
• Shell: The top and bottom layers, as well as walls.
• Skin: The top and bottom layers only.
• Insect: See Wall.
• Wall: The contour of a layer. Typically comprised of inner walls and outer walls. The terms "inner" and "outer" do not refer to the actual shape of the printed object, but rather which side of the wall they are. Inner walls form the surface touching the infill inside the model, and outer walls form the surface touching the air (and support material) outside the model.
• Part: a.k.a island. It is a closed polygons that have no overlapped with another closed polygons in the 2D layer.
• Winding Order: The order of the points forming a polygon (see above). In CuraEngine, if the points around the polygon are in clockwise order, the polygon is considered to be a hole in the layer, whereas if they are in counter-clockwise order, they are considered to be a solid area.