MakerBot Industries

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 [↩]

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!