Digital technologies/3D printing/3D modeling- Beginner/Create a New Design

When you click “Create a new design" in the splash page, you are brought to a new window with a blue, gridded, base workplane (as illustrated in the section above). Think of the base workplane as a floor or the base of the 3D printer. You want to make sure that the part you are building is sitting on the this surface. This is where you will do your designing. There are several tools which you can use to help you design.

1. Name of your design: To change the name of your design, click on the automatically generated name that is in the top left corner. This is useful to be able to find the design later and know what it is.
2. View square: Drag around the square to change the viewing angle.
3. View buttons: Bring the viewing angle back to home, change the zoom, switch to orthogonal view
4. Show all: This will show any hidden shapes. While designing, you can choose to hide a shape. This is sometimes helpful if you want to see a piece that is under another.
5. Group: Take several shapes and turn them into one shape
6. Ungroup: Take a shape that is composed of several pieces, and separate them back into individual pieces.
7. Align: Align several pieces
8. Mirror: Mirror a component
9. Import: You can also import shapes that have already been created using the Import button. You can add both 2D and 3D shapes. The file type for 2D shapes needs to be “.svg”, and the file type for 3D shapes is “.stl” or “.obj”
10. Export: Download the selected object or everything on the build plate. Download it as an .stl for 3D printing and a .svg for laser cutting.