I realize that the build limits are probably based on desktop 3D Printer volumes. However, people are using TinkerCAD for much more than just designing small objects. I love TinkerCAD for it's ease and simplicity. In fact, it's my go to CAD application for most projects now. However, if I want to think BIG... I have to do some sort of conversion in my head to make it work. Example: If I wanted to design a doghouse... it won't fit (unless I use inches as feet). Then I can design the whole project... I just need to constantly remind myself ("6 inches in the real world is actually only 1/2 inch in TinkerCAD" and so on). I've done some pretty large scale designs this way... but I think it's time to realize that TinkerCAD has moved beyond 3D Printers, and make larger build volumes (thus larger grid divisions) a standard feature.
8 comments
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Julia Truchsess +1 I've done some large designs as well, and mentally keeping track of the scaling is a pain, as you've noted.
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Trscouk Trscouk +1 please add some functionality here. Or point to a solution that is available somewhere else in the portfolio...
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Christian This is a popular request...Tinkercad has always had this limitation by design. Serving a free, online, brower-based app has to have some give and takes. The biggest hit would come on the backend geometry engine modifications and increased costs on the servers to support larger projects with precision.
While we would have a ways to go there, Fusion360 is becoming more and more intuitive to use. It can support the larger projects you refer to right now.
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Stephan Ainley I was about to email this request in (and still may). We were going to be modeling larger projects in my tech classes before I realized we're limited to a meter square. We COULD convert, but that seems arbitrary and annoying. Doesn't feel like best practices for what literally could be label change (mm, in, feet, yards, meters, etc....).
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Bill Goins I'm trying to print a cylinder which is 10.3 mm in diameter, by 17.0 mm tall and when I set these measurements and save it, my printer prints out 5.20 mm in diameter and 18.01 mm counting the base.
I have done this about 6 times and keep coming up with much to small in diameter. can anyone tell me what I am doing wrong? also there are some numbers in tinker-cad which I don't know what they are, is there somewhere I can go to see the way the numbers work in tinker-cad?
Thanks
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Julia Truchsess 18mm (including the "base"?) instead of 17mm is not an uncommon amount of error with some printers, but 5.2mm instead of 10.3mm diameter is seriously wrong. As you mention numbers in Tink that you don't understand, maybe you're looking at the wrong number, and your object is not really 10.3mm in diameter? Tink displays six number for any selected object or objects:
- X dimension
- Y dimension
- Z dimension
- X offset from ruler origin
- Y offset from ruler origin
- Z offset from ruler origin
Also note that the ruler has two modes: Use Midpoint and Use Endpoint. This affects the offset measurements - they will show either the distance from the origin to the edge of the selection or to the midpoint of the selection. Change modes by clicking the 3-lined icon near the origin or via the keyboard shortcut shift-R. Clicking the origin itself while in Endpoint mode will (usually) change the edge that it measures to, but beware that this is buggy - sometimes it doesn't work at all, and sometimes it moves the origin slightly, which has caused me great inconvenience at times.
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Rob Wendes Whilst it might be limited isn't it possible to at least charge the scale of measurement using the same resolution.
Let's say that tinker cad allows 600x600x600 resolution.
If I drew a cube that filled that space and clicked on one dimension why couknt it be set to say 29.3 ft for instance with the remaining sides adjusting their dimensions to suit.
A 300x200x100 cube that the 100 side was set to 10 ft would result in a 30ft x 20ft x 10ft cube.
That would at least allow the user to scale the measurements rather than the object. That would do for me. Is like to model a work ship which is about 20ft x 18ft x 8ft so the fact that the resolution is lower won't really affect me
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Julia Truchsess I often use 1mm = 1 inch. With Tinkercad set for mm, I read the screen dimensions directly in inches. Currently designing a 50-foot structure. A bonus is that when you import 3D objects that were exported from other CAD packages in inches, they are perfectly scaled :)