MakerBot Industries

Curvey bits in 3DTin.com

If you haven’t checked out 3DTin.com in a little while, it’s definitely worth another look.  When 3DTin.com appeared a few months ago it could only be used for designing 3D objects out of cubes.  Designing with just cubes can be quick and reasonably easy, but the end result can have a rough texture.

Since then, Jayesh Salvi, the creator of 3DTin.com has been hard at work developing even more functionality.  He’s added 11 new shapes including cylinders, cone, wedge, sphere, and several variations on these.  You can even specify some of the parameters for these components – such as the radius or height of a cylinder.  Once added, these new parts can be rotated and flipped to suit.

This new functionality is going to allow people to design even more interesting and detailed objects.  These would be amazing additions in any 3D design program, but their inclusion in a browser based program that can export directly to Thingiverse is just plain incredible.

Suzuki by jyro

Thingiverse citizen jyro used the “Import” function on 3DTin.com to have it import an image into the super-user friendly online solid CAD program.  When you import an image, it will pixelate the image, and then turn it into a huge slab of voxels – essentially adding a uniform depth to the entire image.  What jyro must have done is carve away at the parts around the image and sculpted it to have a more rounded appearance.  The result is probably the best looking model out of 3DTin I’ve seen uploaded to Thingiverse.

Cloud Options

Whatever your preferences and skill level, there’s now an online CAD program for you!  There have been several really amazing online CAD programs released in the last seven or so months. ¹  There’s Tony Buser’s CloudSCAD, 3DTin.com, and just today TinkerCAD just entered open Beta.  Interestingly, I don’t see these three CAD programs as competitors.  If 3D design were building blocks, 3DTin.com would be the Duplo – quick, intuitive, and easy to use with the trade-off being limited resolution.  CloudSCAD is the web based version of my favorite modeling program, the open-source OpenSCAD.  I’ve only used TinkerCAD a little, but it’s looking very promising so far as a full-fledged solid CAD program that lives in your browser.

FireFox users, be warned!  FireFox is kinda fussy about WebGL.  If you’re having problems getting FireFox to run TinkerCAD, give this page a shot.

1. Photo courtesy of Kevin Dooley [↩]

No strings!

How do you design a structure in 3DTin.com that doesn’t have any blocks underneath?

It’s easier than you think.  All you have to do is create a system of supports, design your object on top of them, and then delete the supports!  I would offer two notes in this regard.  If no part of your object to be printed is touching the XY plane, ReplicatorG will automatically make the most negative Z point touch the XY plane. ¹  Second, if you’ve got some seriously crazy unsupported structures, you should definitely try the newest support structure options in ReplicatorG.

1. Thanks to Charles Pax for this tip. [↩]

Thing-A-Day.com!

The website Thing-A-Day.com challenges people to create a new thing each day in February.  Sign-ups start on January 21, 2011 and end on midnight of February 1, 2011.

And the timing really couldn’t be better.  Now that Thingiverse has incorporated Flattr buttons, people can even reward you with “digital tips” to help keep you motivated throughout the month.  So, dust off some old designs, get inspired to create new things, sculpt something amazing on 3Dtin.com, and share it with everyone!

Retroacan_004 by sergio.carrasco.a on 3DTin.com

3Dtin.com is an online 3D design program.  Imagine someone stirring up Sketchup, Legos, and playdoh in a big pot and then sticking it up on a web page for all to use.  The web interface is very intuitive and the mix of colors plus solid building block modeling system makes for a fun way to quickly mock up a design.  Although, the objects that you can create are highly “voxelated” (Read: blocky) an unbounded building system like this is really only limited by your imagination.

Solder Holder by pehr

Last, but not least, Thingiverse citizen pehr put together a Solder Holder by designing in 3Dtin and then exporting directly to an STL!