Autodesk 123D Design Review

While every 3D printer comes with its designing software tools, users may find them cumbersome, too complex, and with too few or simply too weak features. 3D printer manufacturers, after all, are not always software developer experts, and they offer their tools as free supporting utilities to complete the function scope of the printer. Alternatives can always be found, based on the file types recognized by the 3D printer. One of those alternatives comes from Autodesk, the best known and experienced developer in the field of CAD software.

Multiplatform 3D Modeling

123D Design’s interface lets you modify simple shapes through intuitive on-screen commands (image: 123D Design)

Part of its free of charge 123D Apps collection, Autodesk’s 123D Design is a powerful, yet relatively simple to use 3D creation and editing tool that can work seamlessly with most 3D printer models in the market. All you need to do is download the software’s PC, Mac or iPad version. When you are done creating you can 3D print by exporting the STL file or by sending your design directly to Meshmixer (another one of Autodesk’s 3D Printing Apps) to finalize it and get it ready for the 3D printer.

123D Design uses a simple and intuitive graphical user interface that places your toolbox on the top and the view tools right beneath it, with the design area taking the rest of the space. The icons of the toolbox items are very indicative of their functionality, and they spawn items list when clicked. The approach of placing something in the design area is not the usual “drag n drop” but the more convenient “click and place”. Drag and drop may be used later to refine the position of an item though, but that is camera-dependent as it works with vertical and perpendicular vectors. By clicking the item after its placement, you can change its properties (height, length, etc).

See it in 3D then make it real

You can simply import images and “make them 3D” (image: 123D Design)

The way the viewpoints are handled is quite intuitive and effective as well. There’s a viewpoint cube on the upper right that highlights your currently active view. You may click any of the sides or corners of the cube and go into a different view mode. This is especially useful when you want to move an item at a particular direction as objects cannot be moved closer or further from the viewer’s point (zooming is working perfectly though). Besides the fixed view angles, you can also hold your right click and move the camera around freely.

Read the final conclusion of our review over at all3dp.com.

Are you interested in #3DPrinting? Make sure you get the latest updates straight to your RSS Feeder!

Originally published at all3dp.com on March 16, 2015.