It is easy to write off Tinkercad as a kid’s toy. It is easy enough for kids to learn and it uses bright colors looking more like a video game than a CAD tool. We use a variety of CAD tools, but for something quick, sometimes Tinkercad is just the ticket. Earlier this year, Tinkercad got a sketch feature, something many other CAD programs have and, now, you can even revolve the sketch to form complex objects. Tinkercad guru [HL ModTech] shows you how in the video below.
It wasn’t long ago that we needed to cut an irregular shape out of an STL and we found the sketch feature whic was perfect for that purpose. If you’ve used other CAD tools, you’ll know that sketches are typically 2D shapes that get changed into a 3D shape. The traditional thing is to simply extrude it, so if you draw a circle in 2D, you get a cylinder.
However, you can also revolve a profile around a center point. In that case, a circle would give you a torus or, you know, a doughnut-shape. In Tinkercad these are two different tools.
In the video, you can see how the revolve works. One nice feature is that in the top right corner is a live preview of what your shape will look like after revolving. The video shows a classic example — a chess piece. If you want to see something more practical, he also has a project to create train tracks using the new feature.
If you want to learn more about Tinkercad, you can do worse than watch all of [HL ModTech’s] videos. You can do some pretty amazing things with nothing more than a Web browser.
Tinkercad can even do parameters, sort of. If you virtually attended Remoteacon (the COVID-19 version of Supercon) you already knew that Tinkercad isn’t just for kid stuff.
Still can’t do a simple measurement
THAT is my biggest issue with it. With all the new features their adding to it, I hope an actual tape measure makes it in there.
I’m just about getting comfortable with FreeCAD. Is tinkercad worth looking into? I have a distrust of autocad and its ilk but then again I only use kicad as the daily driver, and FreeCAD only for personal projects.
Go for it. If you already know how to use freecad it’ll be a step down but it’s so simple to use. It’s great for doing quick modifications to stl files, like punching holes or merging parts . Unlike “real” cad software it only takes a couple of minutes to learn how to use. So you don’t have to spend a hours of time learning how it works before realizing you don’t like it.
No
Tinkercad is capable of way more than people think. What I like most about it is the subtractive capability, where you can use a complex shape to carve out a relief in another in a split second.
Because the computations are done on the cloud via remote server, you don’t get Boolean errors that occur w/ locally run apps when your device runs out of available memory.
Where Tinkercad is less capable is on producing internal or external threads, gears, rounding off edges, and creating compound curves. Sculpting organic surfaces is also not its domain. It is not Nomad Sculpt and not intended to be. So, if you’re looking to model a T-Rex skeleton, Tinkercad is not the right tool.
Advanced drafting such as mapping a hexagonal wire frame over a 3D surface such as a cylinder or vase isn’t going to happen with Tinkercad, but then again that usually requires specialized mapping and rendering software beyond the capabilities of Fusion 360, etc. anyways.
I’ve created geometric, engine and motor parts in Tinkercad for DMLS printing in titanium and steel in a fraction of the time it would take to draft in Fusion 360, etc. Note however, that your typical 3D output format with Tinkercad will be STL or OBJ, and not STEP. So, you’re not going to be able to code for CNC via the outputs for example.
If you need to whip something together quickly for proof of concept, Tinkercad is fantastic. Just know its realistic limitations.
Being a newcomer to 3d printing I’ve been using Tinkercad a fair bit – mostly because I don’t have the time to learn FreeCAD at the moment. I fired it up and realised it was going to take some effor. Tinkercad was intuitive, and I managed to go through a few iterations of an idea and create a USB-C PD board mount for a project in realtively quick time. The biggest reason for multiple iterations was a lack of calipers, something I need to rectify!
OpenSCAD FTW!
OpenSCAD always feels like trying to use a RPN calculator. Everything just feels inside out. Wouldn’t this be the ideal case for an object-based scripting language? Create the base object, do some modifications, assign it a name, then be able to reference it later. Instead, the definition is at the core of several layers of function calls until it has more parenthesis than lisp.
I’ve just never been able to get my head wrapped around it properly.
I personally prefer using OpenSCAD, but if I’m teaching kids, I prefer Tinkercad.
I think you’re describing modules. I define them up front and reuse them. Plus the BOSL2 lib makes OpenSCAD much easier to work with IMO. I’m a developer so I may be predisposed to starting out with abstract thought rather then trying stuff out visually.
BowlerStudio is an O-O progromatic CAD package. It uses the Groovy langauge as the scripting langauge, and has a full CSG api for programming shapes. It has a CLI tool for easy integration into development pipelines and CI building of parts.
Yes OpenSCAD. Every so often I give Fusion, Tinkercad, Freecad etc etc a go. Every time I think – No I could have that in Openscad in half the time it took to even start learning the weird arcane mouse fiddling that those visual monstrosities seem to need.
Tinkercad is my go to tool for creating simple objects for 3D printing. I just don’t have the time to learn a proper tool like FreeCad. If Tinkercad could just include a basic level of parametric design it’d be great.
https://hackaday.com/2023/04/26/parametric-design-with-tinkercad/ — not exactly what you want but not bad. The big problem is there’s no “round trip.” It generates objects parametrically. Want a different parameter? That’s a new object.
You might want to try Solvespace. It’s fully constraint based. We are also experimenting with adding named parameters that can be used in expressions around the sketch – though this isn’t likely to land in a release until next year.
Ha! I was this feature come through in my classes this week, the kids have been confused by it and get stuck in the sketcher tool.
I can’t help but notice that this “revolve” feature is a lighter weight version of the CaDoodle sweep feature. I wonder if TinkerCAD dev team is looking at the FOSS competition leaving them in the dust and trying to add features to keep up?
See for yourself, CaDoodle added this feature back in May, about long enough ago for the dev team to add it to Tinkercad: https://hackaday.io/project/202791-cadoodle-doodle-in-cad/log/240718-a-spiral-shape-added-to-basicshapes-and-new-sweep-parameters
CaDoodle started life as a TinkerCAD clone that is local and privacy focused, but it now seems that TinkerCAD is knocking off features from CaDoodle, delightful!
I’ve used AutoCAD for decades, yet have limited 3D use with it. I honestly tried FreeCAD & quickly went looking for something else. TinkerCAD may be simple, but I’ve made some complex models in it (1st use was cutting a model in half to fit my printer). I didn’t realize they now have a sketch function. So can’t wait to try as there are some limitations in the software, but for what it is, it useful and very easy to pick up.