Elephant Foot Fixer 1.0.1

This add-on chamfers or insets the bottom outline of a model, on the outer edge and around every hole, to cancel elephant foot in 3D prints. Blender 4.2 LTS or newer, tested on 4.2 LTS, 5.1 and 5.2 LTS.

Install

1. Extension zip (recommended): elephant_foot_fixer-1.0.1.zip. Drag it into Blender, or go to Edit > Preferences > Get Extensions, open the drop-down at the top right and choose Install from Disk.
2. Legacy zip: elephant_foot_fixer-1.0.1-legacy.zip. Go to Edit > Preferences > Add-ons > Install from Disk, then tick Elephant Foot Fixer.

The panel is in the 3D Viewport sidebar. Press N and open the Elephant tab.

Fix a part, step by step

1. Import your model (File > Import > STL or 3MF). It must be a closed mesh.
2. Set 1 Blender unit =. STL files are almost always in millimetres, so choose 1 mm. The line under it shows how many millimetres one unit is now.
3. Choose your Printer preset, or change Shape, Inset and Height. Any change switches the preset to Custom.
4. Optional: click Check Footprint. It shows the outlines and holes found on the bed, the footprint size and the bed area, and changes nothing.
5. Select one or more objects and click Fix Elephant Foot. Each object is measured from its own lowest point, so parts do not need to sit at Z = 0.
6. Read the report in the panel: the footprint size before and after, the volume removed, and watertight. Press Ctrl+Z to undo.
7. Export as STL or 3MF. In the slicer, turn off its own elephant-foot compensation for this part, so it is not done twice.

Settings

Presets

Tips

• Find your own value: print a 20 mm cube, measure the width at the very bottom and at mid-height, and use half of the difference as the inset.
• Use a height of one to three first layers. A chamfer prints more cleanly than a sharp step on most FDM printers.
• For resin prints without a raft, the Inset shape matches the over-exposed bottom layers, which grow sideways by the same amount all the way up.
• If a part has a thin fin or a narrow neck on the bed, it is refused with a reason. Lower the inset for that part.
• Prepare a whole plate at once: select all parts and click once. Parts that were already done are skipped.

Limits

• Only closed meshes. Parts with open or non-manifold edges are refused (repair them first).
• The part needs at least one flat face on the bed. Spheres and parts standing on a tip or edge are refused.
• It works on the base mesh, not on modifier results.
• The flat bottom face is rebuilt as triangles. UVs and detail on the bottom face itself are not kept.
• Very sharp corners (under about 30°) are inset by at most 4 times the inset along the corner.
• Each mesh is done once. A custom property elephant_foot_fixer on the mesh data records the settings used. Undo first if you want different settings.

Licence

GPL-3.0-or-later. Made by Sonneblom Digitaal.