Best Slicers for Dental Resin 3D Printing (2026)

This guide is for dental technicians, clinicians and clinic IT staff who print models from intraoral scans on a resin 3D printer and need to choose the slicer, the program that turns an STL file into a print job. It compares the slicers dental teams meet most often: CHITUBOX, Lychee Slicer, Formlabs PreForm, Anycubic Photon Workshop, Asiga Composer and PrusaSlicer. Not tested yet: the facts come from the developers’ own pages and documentation.

The short answer: the printer decides first. A Formlabs printer needs PreForm, an Asiga printer needs Composer, and an Anycubic printer works best with Photon Workshop. If you own a third-party LCD resin printer, choose between CHITUBOX and Lychee Slicer. Both have a free tier, and CHITUBOX adds a paid dental mode.

The short list

What a dental slicer has to do

A slicer is not dental CAD. It does not design a crown, a guide or a splint. It takes a finished model, usually an STL exported from your scanner or CAD software, and prepares it for printing. For dental work that means five tasks:

• Orientation. Place the model so the surfaces that matter, such as the occlusal surface of a study model, are not covered by supports.
• Hollowing and drain holes. A hollow model saves resin, but a closed cavity traps uncured resin, so the holes have to be right.
• Supports. Automatic supports save time. Manual editing matters when the default placement touches a critical surface.
• Printer and resin profiles. Exposure and layer settings depend on the printer and the resin, so a good profile library saves test prints.
• Batching. Labs often fill the build plate with several arches. Auto-layout and collision checks help here.

A slicer also does not make a part safe for the mouth. For splints, surgical guides or temporaries, use a resin validated for that indication, with the printer settings and post-processing its manufacturer specifies.

Printer-maker software: PreForm, Composer and Photon Workshop

Formlabs PreForm

PreForm is free. Formlabs states that there are no licences, annual fees or installation limits. It only prints to Formlabs printers, but you can install it without a printer and prepare jobs on any computer. Its Dental Workspace (PreForm 3.29 and later) has indication presets, and Scan to Model turns an intraoral scan into a printable model with a trim plane, a base and optional hollowing. Scan to Model and the dental resins appear only for printers that can print biocompatible materials, so if the tooth icon is missing, check which printer is selected. Formlabs lists integrations with 3Shape, exocad, Medit and Zirkonzahn. See the official PreForm page.

Asiga Composer

Composer is build-preparation software for Asiga printers. Asiga provides it free to its printer customers, with unlimited installations, so we list it as shareware (conditionally free). It detects dental parts, orients and supports them automatically, and gives access to a large material library. Asiga says this automation is currently for dental parts only. The download sits behind the Asiga customer login, and Asiga publishes no public changelog, so check your account for the current build. Details: Asiga Composer.

Anycubic Photon Workshop

Photon Workshop is free and built for Anycubic resin printers. It offers automatic supports with Light, Medium and Heavy presets, manual and hand-drawn supports, shell and drain-hole tools, and remote printing to connected Anycubic printers. It has no dedicated dental features and no Linux version. For a clinic that has already bought an Anycubic printer for models, it is the simplest start. Documentation: Anycubic wiki.

Slicers for third-party resin printers: CHITUBOX and Lychee

CHITUBOX

CHITUBOX is a shareware slicer: the Basic tier is free, while the Advanced, Pro and Team tiers and the dental mode are paid. The free tier covers orientation, supports, hollowing, drain holes and basic model repair, and it can use up to two build platforms at once. CHITUBOX Dental is a separate paid dental mode with a free trial. According to CBD-Tech, it keeps the full Pro toolset and adds an “Auto Processing” button that orients, fills, hollows, drills, supports and lays out dental parts, with dental printing profiles for more than 160 resin printers. The vendor lists orthodontic models, restorative models, implant guides, casting wax, aligners and temporary crowns and bridges as applications. See CHITUBOX and the dental edition.

Lychee Slicer

Lychee Slicer from Mango3D is also shareware. The Lite edition is free, with ads on export. The paid Plus edition unlocks the automatic support system, voxel hollowing and multi-plate tools, and Plus can be tried before you buy. The developer says it supports more than 750 printer models. Its main advantage for small labs is Linux support in addition to Windows and macOS. It has no dental workspace, only a “Dental & Orthodontic” use case in the vendor’s list, so dental settings are yours to set. Version 8 is a full rebuild, and version 7.6.6 is still offered as the previous stable release, which is a useful fallback in production. Official site: lychee.co.

PrusaSlicer and Cura: when they make sense

PrusaSlicer is free and open source, and it has a resin mode with bundled profiles for the Original Prusa SL1 and SL1S SPEED and for several Anycubic Photon Mono models. It has no dental features. Prusa names study and thermoforming models among the uses of its Prusament Resin Model. UltiMaker Cura is free too, but it slices only for filament (FDM) printers, so it is not a resin slicer. Use Cura only for FDM jobs such as teaching models or lab fixtures. For hollowing in PrusaSlicer, see the Prusa hollowing guide.

Workflow: from scan to print job

1. Export the arch as STL from your scanner or model software, for example Medit Link or 3Shape Unite. If the scan has no base, add one first. To check files before printing, see our free dental CAD viewers.
2. Open the file in the slicer that matches your printer and select the profile for your resin.
3. Orient the model, hollow it and add drain holes near the base.
4. Generate supports and check the island and cavity warnings in the preview.
5. Slice, send the job to the printer and follow the resin maker’s post-processing instructions.

Limitations

• Not tested yet: this comparison is based on vendor documentation, not on our own print runs.
• Dental automation lives in different places: PreForm’s Dental Workspace, Composer’s part identification and the paid CHITUBOX Dental. Lychee, Photon Workshop and PrusaSlicer leave dental settings to you.
• Printer-maker slicers lock you to one brand. If you plan to change printers, a general slicer makes switching easier.
• Versions and printer lists change often, so check the vendor page before you install.
• None of the vendors we checked makes regulatory claims for the slicer itself. Validating the printed part is your responsibility.

Which one should you use

• Formlabs printer: PreForm. It is the supported route and it is free.
• Asiga printer: Composer.
• Anycubic printer, models only: Photon Workshop, or CHITUBOX if you want one tool for several brands.
• Mixed fleet of LCD printers: CHITUBOX, and add CHITUBOX Dental if you want automatic dental preparation.
• Linux workstation: Lychee Slicer or PrusaSlicer.
• Prusa SL1S: PrusaSlicer.

FAQ

Is CHITUBOX free?

The Basic tier is free. The Advanced, Pro and Team tiers are paid, and CHITUBOX Dental is a paid dental mode with a free trial. We list CHITUBOX as shareware (conditionally free).

Is Lychee Slicer free?

The Lite edition is free and shows ads on export. Lychee Plus is paid and can be tried before you buy it.

Is Formlabs PreForm free?

Yes. Formlabs says PreForm has no licences, annual fees or installation limits. It prepares jobs only for Formlabs printers.

Can Photon Workshop slice for printers other than Anycubic?

It is built for Anycubic printers. For other brands use CHITUBOX, Lychee Slicer or the slicer from your printer’s maker.

Is there a Linux version of these slicers?

Lychee Slicer and PrusaSlicer run on Linux. Asiga lists Linux among Composer’s platforms. The current CHITUBOX has Windows and macOS builds only, and PreForm and Photon Workshop have no Linux version.

Which slicer makes dental models automatically?

PreForm (Scan to Model on supported Formlabs printers), Composer (on Asiga printers) and the paid CHITUBOX Dental offer dental automation. The others need manual setup.

Last updated: 14 October 2026 · Dents-Soft editorial team. Licence, version and platform details are checked against each developer's official documentation; none of the tools listed here should be treated as a certified medical device unless its vendor says so.