Build Plate Arrangement and Nesting#

Overview#

Once each part has an orientation, you need to place them on the build plate. For a single part that means centering it with margin. For batches, it means packing: fitting as many parts as possible without collisions, while leaving the spacing each process needs and keeping print time, failure risk and post-processing manageable.

Arrangement is performed in a few places: the slicer after a 3D Print or Save As Mesh hand-off, inside a Fusion additive setup with the Additive > Position > Arrange tool in the Manufacture workspace, or in the manufacturer's preparation software for resin, SLS and metal machines. The principles are the same everywhere. Menu names vary; verify in your version.

Where to find it#

Step by step#

Single part#

1. Confirm the part fits the build volume in the chosen orientation with at least 5-10 mm margin on each side for skirt, brim and travel moves.
2. Center the part on the plate unless the plate has a known bad region (for example a worn area, a thermal edge or an uneven corner).
3. For FDM, avoid the extreme edges where bed temperature is lower and bed leveling is least accurate.
4. For resin, avoid placing the part against the plate's edges, where resin flow and light uniformity are weaker; keep a small border.

Multiple parts on a plate#

1. Import everything into the same job. Export multiple bodies from Fusion into a single 3MF, or add several files to the slicer.
2. Set copies. For repeated parts, use the slicer's copy or multiply function rather than duplicating in Fusion; this keeps one source model.
3. Apply orientation to each part. Each part may need different orientation.
4. Arrange. Use auto-arrange as a first pass, then adjust manually. For SLS and MJF, packing is 3D, and tools can nest parts in the volume with overlapping bounding boxes if geometry allows.
5. Check spacing. For FDM, 5-10 mm between parts and enough room for nozzle clearance (some printers print one object at a time in a sequence and need gantry clearance). For resin, 3-5 mm. For SLS, 5-10 mm between parts (vendor-specific). For metal, 5-15 mm, with attention to recoater direction.
6. Think about print order. Printing all parts layer-by-layer is efficient but a failure in one affects all. Sequential printing (object by object) isolates failures but needs low parts or a gantry clear height, and is slower.
7. Check heat and warp effects. Many parts on a heated bed share heat. In metal, distributing parts evenly across the plate balances thermal load, and orienting long parts diagonally to the recoater lowers the chance of blade crashes.
8. Estimate the print time and the likelihood of failure. A 30-hour plate with 40 small parts is risky: if there is a failure at hour 29, you lose it all. Split into two jobs if a failure is expensive.

Arranging in a Fusion additive setup#

Per Autodesk's help, with an additive setup and machine selected:

1. Click Additive > Position > Arrange. The Additive Arrange dialog opens with the Objects tab. All components in the setup are selected by default; click components on the canvas to change that.
2. Choose an Arrangement Type: 2D Arrange (True Shape) places components in a single layer on the platform; 3D Arrange (True Shape) optimizes placement by true shape for higher packing density.
3. Choose a Sorting Type (Priority, Volume or Manual) that decides which components get placed first when they do not all fit, and a Placement (Center, or Lower Left Corner).
4. Optionally set Create Copies (Global Quantity, overridable per component) and tick Rotation with Global X, Y and Z Rotation increments. Multi-Axis Rotations allows rotating about more than one axis at once.
5. Choose what happens to Unselected Components: Lock Position or Move Outside Build Volume.
6. On the Spacing tab set Platform Clearance, Frame Width, Ceiling Clearance, Object Spacing and Voxel Size (smaller voxels give more precise spacing).
7. On the Solver tab you can tick Avoid Interlocking (method: Bounding Box or Translational) and choose arrangement criteria, which apply only when Rotation is on.
8. Click OK. To revise it later, right-click the Additive Arrange node in the Browser and choose Edit.

Tip from the help: to keep printing away from certain areas of a machine, upload a .3mf as the Platform No Build Zone on the Platform page of the Machine Definition dialog. Check the result with the interference analysis and the arrangement statistics tools, then go on to supports.

Options reference#

Tips and pitfalls#

Tip: Group parts of similar height. Tall and short parts together mean the short ones sit idle while the nozzle travels over tall ones, and the tall ones have a higher chance of wobbling or being knocked.

Tip: Leave consistent spacing between parts and the plate edge, and place heavy or critical parts near the center where plate flatness and temperature are best.

Warning: Do not trust a perfect-fit layout. Skirts, brims, purge lines and the nozzle's physical size make "touching" parts collide. Always leave the spacing the process requires.

Warning: In FDM, stringing between closely placed parts creates thin webs that contaminate surfaces. Increase spacing or retraction settings.

Tip: For resin, tilt every part and stagger them so that no two share the same layer cross-section peaks. Spread the peel load.

Warning: For metal and SLS, parts too close fuse together. Leave the vendor's minimum gap and keep each part off the plate edge.

Tip: Number or label parts. Embed a small identifier (raised text of 0.4 mm on a hidden face) or keep a build map so you can identify parts after support removal.

Tip: When a plate holds many different parts, record the arrangement as a saved 3MF project so reprinting a failed part is as easy as deleting the others.

Batch planning#

A pragmatic approach to production is to treat each plate as a unit:

1. Define a plate by a target duration, for instance an overnight print of 8-12 hours.
2. Fill it with parts whose total estimated time fits.
3. Put the most critical parts nearest the center.
4. Add one or two cheap "sacrificial" calibration items, such as a tolerance coupon, to learn about drift.
5. Review the first layer carefully since it catches many plate-wide problems.

For hobby use this level of planning is overkill, but anyone printing parts for a product or for sale benefits.

Plate adhesion and surfaces#

The plate type changes what you design. Smooth PEI sheets give a glossy bottom surface; textured sheets give a grainy bottom. Glass beds give a very smooth, flat bottom but may need adhesive. Resin plates are typically textured aluminum. Designing a bottom face as a cosmetic surface means your choice of sheet defines its appearance.

Large first-layer areas stick strongly; tiny footprints (needles, tall pins) do not. If the footprint is small, add a brim, a raft or a wider base in the model (a cone or disc at the bottom, which you can remove later). Round the corners of large footprints to prevent peeling.

Practice exercise#

Create a simple part (for example a 20 mm cube with a 10 mm hole) and export it. In your slicer, add 12 copies. Auto-arrange them with 8 mm spacing and note the total print time. Then re-arrange them with 4 mm spacing and compare. Next, split into two plates of 6 parts each. Expected result: tighter spacing may reduce the number of plates but increases risk of stringing; splitting into two plates doubles setup time but halves the loss from a failure. Record which approach you prefer for your printer.

Related#

• Orientation and Support Generation
• Additive Settings and Machine and Material Libraries
• The 3D Print Command and Sending to a Slicer

Arrangement mistakes worth avoiding#

Ignoring the nozzle path. On FDM, travel moves between parts can drag across already printed features, especially tall thin ones. Slicers can avoid crossing perimeters, but crowded plates limit that. If a tall part is knocked over, it often takes neighboring parts with it, so keep fragile tall pieces toward the edge of the group, or print them in a separate job.

Packing by area only. The footprint is not the whole story. A part that is 5 mm wide and 80 mm tall fits into a small gap but is the one most likely to wobble. Count its failure risk when choosing the plate.

Mixing materials or settings. Parts on one plate share one temperature, one layer height and one set of speeds unless you use per-object modifiers. Do not put a small detailed part and a thick structural part with very different layer-height needs on a single plate unless your slicer can vary them.

Forgetting post-processing access. In resin and metal, parts packed too tightly are hard to cut away from the plate and hard to wash. Leave room for tools. For SLS, leave room for depowdering, because parts in dense nests can be hard to separate.

Forgetting that orientation and position interact. Metal builds are sensitive to the recoater direction; elongated parts should be rotated a few degrees relative to it so the blade meets them gradually. Resin plates benefit from rotating parts slightly so the peel front does not meet a long straight edge all at once.

Leaving the design as one huge body set. If your Fusion design has many unrelated bodies, do not export them all every time. Select the group for the current plate, so each plate corresponds to a clear list of parts. Naming bodies with a plate prefix, such as P1_lid and P2_base, keeps this orderly.