Learn/Drafting/Solid Modeling Tools
3D Sketch
Updated v2.3.9At a glance
- ⚗️ Experimental preview — rough around the edges; save often
- Draw a path that leaves the flat plane — line, arc, circle, spline, and point all in 3D
- Same conventions as Sketch: docked panel, snap toggles, hotkeys, hover/click/box selection
- Points land on an active workplane (Shift+Tab to switch) and snap to sketch points, 2D sketches, and part edges
- Space selects a whole connected run; Sweep or Pipe follows it for roll cages, tube bends, and handrails
⚗️ Experimental. 3D Sketch is an early preview — expect rough edges, and save often when you lean on it. We're actively polishing it, so behavior may change.
A 3D Sketch works just like a Sketch — the same docked panel with snapping toggles and a Finish button, the same hotkeys, the same selection — but every point is a real point in space with its own height, not a flat drawing pinned to a single plane. It's the sketch you reach for when a path has to leave the plane: a roll-cage tube that climbs and turns, a handrail that follows a stair, a wire run routed around a chassis. Both kinds of sketch live together in the Sketches folder in the browser, and the 3D one is marked with its own icon so they're easy to tell apart.
Draw the way you already know
The draw tools follow the Sketch conventions exactly:
- Line (
L) is the familiar two-click line — click the start, watch the live length readout, click the end. Hold Shift to lock to a workplane axis, or press Tab to type an exact length or start coordinates. PressLagain and snap to the last endpoint to chain a route. - Arc (
A) is a 3-point arc: the three points you click define both the curve and the plane it curves in, so a bend can lean any direction you like. - Circle (
C) draws a full loop on the active workplane — a ring path for a pipe. Tab types an exact radius. - Spline flows a smooth curve through the points you click; Enter finishes it.
- Point drops standalone points to snap to or route through later.
Fillet (F) and Chamfer round or clip the corner between two lines at the radius or setback
you set in the panel, finding their own plane from the two segments — a real bend radius on a path
means a swept tube never has to turn a hard corner.
Placing points in space
Clicking with a flat mouse in a 3D view needs a reference, so the tool keeps an active workplane — shown as a grid — that clicks land on. Press Shift+Tab to flip between planes (a hint by the grid keeps the key discoverable), or use Pick Workplane… in the panel to make any face or plane the drawing surface. Snapping pulls the cursor onto sketch points, onto the geometry of your visible 2D sketches, and onto the corners and edges of parts already in the model — the cursor dot turns red when it grabs — and the panel's snap toggles choose what participates.
Selecting and reworking a route
Selection works like Sketch: hover highlights, click selects, shift-click adds or removes, drag a box to grab a region (rightward = fully enclosed, leftward = anything touched), and Space flood-selects everything connected to the selection — one tap grabs a whole route. X flips construction on and off, Delete removes, and copy/paste duplicates a run.
Move (M), Rotate, and Scale reshape a selection about points you click; Mirror
drops a reflected copy across the active plane — draw half a symmetric route and mirror the rest.
Simplify (Y) cleans redundant points out of a path, and Project copies a part's edge into
the sketch as a construction reference to trace or snap to.
The payoff: Sweep and Pipe along it
Point Sweep or Pipe & Tube at any segment of a 3D sketch and it follows the whole connected run — every line and bend you chained together (a Chain Selection toggle drops it back to a single segment). The profile travels up, over, and around: a tube that bends out of plane, a swept section that climbs and turns. The path stays tied to the sketch — reopen the 3D sketch, reshape the route, hit Finish, and the solid rebuilds through the new path.