Vase mode prints an object as one continuous spiral of plastic — a single wall, from the first layer to the last, without ever stopping. It is the fastest, cheapest and most translucent way an FDM printer can produce a hollow object, and it is the reason a printed lampshade glows instead of looking like a plastic bucket.
A normal print builds every layer separately: the nozzle traces the outline, fills it, lifts, moves, and starts the next layer. Vase mode — called Spiralize Outer Contour in Cura and Spiral vase in PrusaSlicer, Orca Slicer and Bambu Studio — removes that structure entirely. The printer traces the outer contour once per layer while the Z axis rises continuously, so the whole object is a single helical extrusion.
Three consequences follow directly from that:
A shade that would take eight hours and 200 g of filament as a normal print comes out in two to three hours and 60–80 g in vase mode.
The setting lives in the print profile, not the printer profile, and most slicers hide it unless you switch the interface to expert or advanced mode.
| Slicer | Where to find it |
|---|---|
| Cura | Print settings → Special Modes → Spiralize Outer Contour |
| PrusaSlicer | Print Settings → Layers and perimeters → Spiral vase |
| Orca Slicer | Process → Others → Spiral vase |
| Bambu Studio | Process → Others → Spiral vase |
PrusaSlicer, Orca and Bambu Studio adjust the dependent settings for you the moment you tick the box: perimeters go to 1, top solid layers to 0, infill to 0, supports off. Cura does not do all of this reliably — after enabling Spiralize, check three values yourself:
Wall Line Count = 1Top Layers = 0Infill Density = 0 %Cura also offers Smooth Spiralized Contours right below the checkbox. Leave it on — it blends the contour between layers and removes faint horizontal banding on curved shapes.
Then slice and look at the preview. A correct vase-mode print shows one continuous spiral, no travel moves inside the object, and no solid surface anywhere except the bottom. If you still see infill lines or a closed top, one of the dependent settings did not take.
In a normal print you make a part stronger by adding walls. In vase mode you cannot — there is only ever one. Strength comes from line width instead.
On a 0.4 mm nozzle the default line width is 0.4 mm, which produces a shade that is beautifully translucent and slightly floppy. Raising the line width to 0.6–0.8 mm on the same nozzle gives a wall you can pick up by the rim without it flexing, at the cost of a little translucency. Most slicers accept up to roughly twice the nozzle diameter before extrusion quality suffers.
Rule of thumb for lampshades: 0.45–0.5 mm for maximum glow on a small shade, 0.7–0.8 mm for anything over about 200 mm tall, where the shade has to carry its own weight.
PLA is the easy choice: it prints reliably, comes in every colour, and diffuses light warmly. Its weakness is heat — it starts to soften around 60 °C, which is fine with an LED bulb and not fine with anything that gets genuinely hot.
PETG tolerates roughly 80 °C, is tougher, and has a slightly glassier look. It is the safer choice for a shade that sits close to the bulb, at the price of being a little fussier to print.
Either way: use an LED bulb. An incandescent or halogen bulb in a printed plastic shade is a fire risk, not a design decision. Modern LEDs run barely above room temperature and there is no reason to use anything else.
Everything above is a constraint on the geometry, not on the slicer. A model that was not drawn for vase mode will slice, and then fail somewhere around two thirds of the way up.
This is the problem LumaForm solves. It is a browser-based parametric designer for lampshades that only ever produces vase-mode-compatible geometry: a single closed wall, no steps, and a live warning when a silhouette gets too aggressive for a single-wall print. You shape the shade with sliders, watch it update in 3D, and download a print-ready STL.
Or open the designer and shape one from nothing.
Launch price €8.99 · print-ready STL, ready to slice in vase mode
A slicer setting that prints an object as one continuous single-wall spiral instead of separate layers with infill. The result is hollow, open at the top, seamless and translucent.
Yes. Cura calls it "Spiralize Outer Contour", PrusaSlicer and its derivatives call it "Spiral vase". Same technique, different label.
Exactly one extrusion width. On a 0.4 mm nozzle that is 0.4 mm by default and can be pushed to about 0.8 mm by raising the line width.
No. The model needs to be a single shell with one continuous outer contour and no closed top. Models with separate parts, internal structures or flat horizontal steps will not spiral correctly.