Shapr3D is a great tool to freely explore, create, refine, and manufacture spontaneous ideas and design variations on iPad and Mac. Plus, you can comfortably modify imported models. Any professional, CAD expert, designer, manufacturer, and architect can pick up the app for conceptual thinking, concept design, and digital prototyping. This is possible because Shapr3D is a tool designed for direct modeling.
Direct modeling is one of three paradigms of 3D modeling in Computer Aided Design (CAD). It’s the easiest to learn compared to the other more complicated, paradigms: freeform surface modeling and parametric modeling. Since these two paradigms require building logical and mathematical relationships between modeling steps, you have to meticulously plan the relationships and parametric connections—which takes years to master. You only need a month or so to pick up direct modeling.
In Shapr3D, direct modeling is painless and flexible. There are two basic steps in your workflow:
- Draw sketches, like circles, lines, and curves.
- Create the faces and bodies from those sketches using tools.
Since there is no parametric or mathematical relationship between the sketches and bodies, you’re free to modify the body in Shapr3D. If you adjust the sketch, the model won’t be updated automatically, as shown below.
After you create the 3D body, you can directly adjust the body without fixing the original sketch.
In Shapr3D, you can even immediately start editing bodies in models that were created with a different modeling software, because Shapr3D disregards the parametric and mathematical relationship between the body and sketch or face. If you export your Shapr3D designs and import them into other CAD applications, you can use a parametric workflow to rebuild the design and make adjustments.