Voxeldance Tango

[TheBaron]

I haven't seen any discussion on BM about Voxeldance's Tango slicing software so far but as I noticed that a cutdown version of it (minus I believe the fancy supports) now ships with Elegoo's new Mars 4, I thought I'd add a quick review - either for anyone encountering this software for the first time or indeed those wondering if the paid version is worth it. As this review is based upon the paid version and I currently print on a Saturn 2, please bear that in mind when reading the following commentary - experiences with different printers will always vary!

 

The first thing to say as a longtime user of Lychee and sometimes Chitubox (which have more in common than they differ in many of the basics) is that Voxeldance seem to have started with the express intention of creating a workspace significantly different from their competitors. That's not always a positive factor in software design of course, but in this case they have I feel succeeded in evolving a 'next level' user experience, one with far more nuanced and responsive approaches to the task of supporting and slicing models for print.

 

Interface

Look, feel and operation are crisp and responsive - quite refreshingly it feels like you are in a screen environment where the designers have concentrated on letting the workflow, well, flow! Perhaps an odd thing to say about a piece of software but the interface feels more clean and spacious throughout than other slicing software I've used. There are two workspaces which you can easily flip between from the top of the screen - 'Preparing', where all the various preparations for hollowing, orienting and supporting take place, and 'Slicing', which simply handles anti-aliasing and sliced exports:

 

Screen/mouse opererations are smooth and responsive across both workspaces, as well as seamlessly integrating with 3D Connexions Spacemouse - something neither Lychee or CTB do well, if at all.

 

Setup

Creating your project uses the familiar start-point of picking your printer from a list (currently there are about 30+ maunfacturers listed - a number of which I've not encountered before) and then customising the profile for the resin you're using:

After positioning, orienting, hollowing etc., it's then on to:

 

Supporting

This aspect of the software quite blew me away when I realized what it was doing. Eschewing the basic tip/pillar/raft paradigm, Voxeldance have done two innovative things here which single Tango out - creating different families of supports suited to different subjects, allied to some quite sophisticated algorithms which generate connective lattices.

 

In terms of the supports the various families are known as:  'Bar', 'Tree', Smart', 'Dragon' and 'Raft', each with different versions  of themselves at multiple scales:

Judging by the names of many of the support families, it's clear that VDT already has a significant following in the Gundam and figure printing community. It's a simple process to modify these support parameters in order to create support scripts personalized to your own type(s) of work. A nice feature in this regard is that rather than trying to cram all the parameters into a single window, Voxeldance scale the information across the main panel and a subsidiary 'More Settings' window so that you don't get swamped with too much data in a single place.

 

You'll also notice in the above screenshot that by default, the 'Support' window opens in 'Auto-Support' mode. Normally 'auto' anything I avoid like the plague ( particularly auto-supports in slicing software!) but in this instance it works well, quite unbelievably well in fact. If  you prefer to use the manual function instead (which I tend to due to the rather complicated nature of some of the parts I work with at present) you just click on the 'manual' button in the bottom left of the 'Supports' window and you're free add what ever supports you want from scratch. You can also mix support types in full auto mode or mix auto and manual together. Addditionally you can go back and edit any individual support or combinations of support in detail at any stage.  I particularly like how the 'Tree' support type lets you grow extra branches from a central core without the need for a whole forest of pilllars.

 

Where VDT score hands down over its competitors is in the supporting lattices which are generated automatically to produce a stable 'cradle' for your object. This enables you to use more supports with smaller tip sizes and thereby reduce surface damage to the object. Additionally, these 'nets' of supports are usually quite easy to tear off by hand before curing. These lattices will vary according to the support type you are using and again are fully adjustable/editable. Another nice touch here are the perforated rafts and customisable extents allowing you to save on resin and increasing ease of removal from the build plate after printing.

 

Outputs

The usual twin options of exporting a sliced project for print or exporting your supported work in an 3d object format for selling are present:

Notice that the only slice-export format supported for Elgoo printers is the newer open source .goo container so with my Saturn 2 I had to export in the .vdt format and use UV Tools to convert to that ghastly proprietary .ctb format (which Elgoo have now thankfully found the sense to abandon).

 

Object export has all the usual suspects:

Anti-aliasing in the 'Slicing' part of the interface contains the usual AA/GL/IB parameters. Annoyingly for me there's a bug for the Saturn 2 profile in the curent version of VDT that sets the AA flag to 8 no matter what I set it to. One of the nice things about Tango though is that the Voxeldance support staff are very active on Discord and I was chatting with one of their tech guys last evening who assures me this problem will be fixed in the next upgrade.

 

Learning curve

Despite the more sophisticated environment, if you've 'grown-up' in 3d printing with the likes of Chitubox and Lychee (as I have) then it's just a case of translating your existing skills into a new workspace. It took me a couple of days at most to adjust, and that included learning the new support paradigms.

 

Conclusion

After working with it for the last fortnight I've ditched all my other slicer software subscriptions and now solely use the paid version of  VDT for print preparation - I found it to be that much better than what I could do previously in the same amount of time. There's no merit however in a conclusion which assumes all users to be identical and that therefore a single verdict is the only permisible one. Tango does in my view have an interface and some unique aspects to its workflows which render it superior to the likes of Lychee and Chitubox but in the end, the kind of user you are should decide whether that is enough of a factor for you to change - which is as it should be, especially where money is changing hands.

 

Probably the clearest way to state the case is that if your work routinely involves complex and/or a wide range of different parts, or you need to produce parts in volume, then VDT provides a deeper and more flexible toolset (at this price level). If however you only need to produce the odd part for you own work and are already happy with Lychee or Chitubox, well there's considerably less reason to change your methodology just for the sake of it. 

 

Anway, given that some BMers may be encountering this software with their new printer (looking at you @Brandy 😁) I thought this of interest.

Tony

[Brandy]

Many thanks Tony!

According to Elegoo my new Mars 4 Ultra is on its way, so this will be invaluable in helping me familiarise with it. Although I don't print huge quantities, I do find that both Chitubox and Lychee can be immensely frustrating when trying to add supports in difficult places so this looks to be the way to go. I presently use only the free versions of both so that's what I'll compare to start with. I've also ordered some new resin - Siraya Tech Fast ABS Like which is supposed to be good for faster printing and not too brittle, so we'll see how that works out too.

 

Ian

[Scargsy]

I'm still new to it (and 3D printing) but it does have some neat features (and also some annoying quirks)

 

Positives:

There are boolean operations built in (so I can add a box for example, scale it, move it, then use that to 'cut out' a section of my model) - this is far nicer than say using MeshMixer (which seems to modify the geometry in ways I don't want) - I'm into 1/24 scale cars so being able to cut out air intakes, etc. on models is handy.

You can export the STL files (I'm not sure if all such software does this but it's handy for me to do the above edits, then export to import into another slicer).

 

On the negative sides:

It's a bit of a pain using with a mouse-pad (on my laptop) - yes I should just plug in a mouse.

When I rescale items it seems to want to stick them back at z=0 (build plate)

I haven't figured out a way to do auto supports AND add additional manual ones (Chitubox seems easier to handle that in).

 

[TheBaron]

On 10/10/2023 at 17:47, Scargsy said:

I haven't figured out a way to do auto supports AND add additional manual ones

You don't say which version of the software you're using but on the paid one if you want to combine auto and manual supports, simply generate whatever type of auto-supports you initially want on your model and then from the same window just proceed to add the manual supports of your choice by clicking the 'manual' button in bottom left:

After that  you can then edit any support at either the tip or node level, again by going back into manual mode.

 

Worth watching Voxeldance's tutorial channel to familiarize yourself with the software due to the clarity/rigour of the explanations they provide.

[nickhenfrey]

I have been using a Voxelab Proxima 6 with Lychee slicer with no real problems for a few years now

 

I just bought the Mars 4 Ultra, and fired up the Voxeldance Tango software, and not finding at all a satisfying experience. The GUI seems haphazard, and worse I imported a Merlin part at full scale, scaled it to 4.167% (for 1/24) and the build plate then became miniscule on the screen. I can find no way to change the View Scale, and while moving it round it disappeared off the screen, and I cannot get it back!!!

 

I think I will go back to Lychee, although if anyone can help with the above points I may give Tango another shot, but from experience if simple stuff doesn't work intuitively then it's rarely worth persevering...

[nickhenfrey]

ok - predicting the obvious response of "go watch the videos", I have done just that, I see if I had a mouse it would probably be a lot easier but I'm sitting in the sun with a Surface Pro and no mouse but a glass of pink wine, but still got back with the F2 key, so I will persevere for the moment!!!

[nickhenfrey]

ok, looking good so far...

 

 

[Ebf2k]

I just started toying with Voxeldance Tango recently as right now it's the only slicer that supports the new Phrozen Mighty Revo and does AA decently.   Following this space!