Josh On Design

TinkerCad is a free web based CAD program. It runs entirely in the browser using WebGL, so you’ll probably want to use it with Chrome (I think Safari may work in Yosemite+). TinkerCad is meant for novice CAD users. So novice that you can know absolutely nothing about CAD and be able to make something after five minutes of their built in learning quests (tutorials). Then you an save your creation to their cloud or download it for 3D printing.

TinkerCad isn’t full featured. You can’t add chamfered edges for example, but you can combine shapes with CSG operations, stretch and rotate them, and add useful prefab shapes like letters and stars. There is even a scripting language for building programmatic objects. The UI challenge of building a CAD for newbies is daunting, yet somehow they did it. TinkerCad almost went out of business since it turns out novice users are also unlikely to pay for CAD applications. Fortunately AutoDesk bought them and have made TinkerCad their free entry level offering.

But this is a book review, right? 3D Modeling and Printing with TinkerCad is a new book by James Floyd Kelly. it walks you through the basics of navigation, creating shapes, merging and subtracting them, all the way to printing models and importing them into Minecraft. The book is very well written and easy to follow with lots of pictures.

So should you buy it? That depends. TinkerCad’s own interactive tutorials are quite good. While I enjoyed the book I’d say 75% of it covers the same things you’ll learn in the tutorials. It really comes down to whether you are more comfortable learning on screen or by reading a paper book. If you learn by paper, then buy it.

3D Modeling and Printing with Tinkercad: Create and Print Your Own 3D Models, James Floyd Kelly