Model in 3D

What you will make

A 1000 × 600 room footprint extruded into a block 400 high, a face pulled up, and a cylinder beside it — then the model saved with the drawing and exported for a 3D viewer or a printer.

The 3D tab sits beside Model under the drawing. It shows the model-space drawing lying on the ground in its layer colors (layers that are off or frozen stay hidden) and the solids you make. The first time it opens, the 3D view loads; after that it switches at once.

Extrude a shape

1. On the Model tab, type REC and press ReturnEnter. Type 0,0, ReturnEnter, @1000,600, ReturnEnter.
2. Click the 3D tab. The toolbar shows the 3D group in place of the drawing groups.
3. Click Extrude (or type EXTRUDE, EXT). Click inside the rectangle, then press ReturnEnter.
4. Type 400 and press ReturnEnter. The history says "Extruded 1 solid, 400 high" with its volume.

Closed polylines (arcs included), rectangles, polygons, circles and ellipses extrude; lines and open polylines do not, and the history says why. You can also select the shapes on the Model tab first and type EXTRUDE there. Instead of typing the height you can click it: the outline follows the cursor up and down. A negative height goes down. Type D at the height prompt to delete the 2D shapes after extruding (D again keeps them).

Push and pull a face

1. Click Press/pull (or type PRESSPULL).
2. Click the top face of the block.
3. Type 100 and press ReturnEnter, or move the cursor and click. The block is 500 high.

Boxes, cylinders and wedges

• BOX: click or type two corners, then a height.
• CYLINDER (CYL): the center, the radius, then a height. Cylinders and extruded circles have 48 sides, shaded smooth.
• WEDGE (WE): two corners and a height. It is full height at the first corner and slopes to nothing at the other.

On the 3D tab a click lands on the face or edge under the cursor, else on the ground, so a box can stand on another solid.

Move, copy, rotate and erase solids

On the 3D tab, a click selects a solid; drag left to right for a window, right to left for a crossing. Then:

• MOVE: click a base point and where it goes, or type <100,0,0> (or @100,0) for a distance along X, Y and Z.
• COPY: the same, leaving the original.
• ROTATE: type an angle (it turns about the middle of the selection, around Z), or click the center, a start point and the angle.
• ERASE or fn DeleteDelete.

Double-click a solid to edit its faces and edges on their own; EscEsc closes it again. Every 3D change is one undo step in the same history as the drawing: ⌘ZCtrl+Z undoes the last thing you did on either tab.

Look around

Drag with the wheel to orbit, ⇧Shift + wheel drag or the right button to pan, and turn the wheel to zoom at the cursor. On a trackpad, two fingers orbit and a pinch zooms. A right click without dragging is ReturnEnter, as on the other tabs. 3DORBIT lets the left button orbit until you press ReturnEnter or EscEsc.

• Views (or VIEW): Iso, Top, Bottom, Front, Back, Left, Right, Perspective or Parallel, and Zoom to everything.
• Style (or VSCURRENT, VS): Shaded, Shaded with edges, Hidden line, Wireframe or X-ray.

A view cube sits at the top right of the 3D tab: click a face, edge or corner to look from there, drag it to orbit, and the house button goes back to the iso view. That is Automatic, the start of Corner indicator in CadCraft settings. Set to View cube, the Model tab shows a cube too, looking from the top; clicking any other side opens the 3D tab looking from there. Set to Axis icon, both tabs show the axis marker instead.

Save and export

Saving keeps the 3D model, in DWG and in DXF. Every face goes in as a 3D face on the layer CC-3D, so other programs show the solids, and CadCraft keeps its own exact copy in the file, which it reads back when you open the drawing again. 3D faces made by other programs come in on the 3D tab as loose faces, kept together as one group.

Export in the 3D group downloads the solids alone: GLB for viewers and the web (GLBOUT), OBJ (OBJOUT) or STL for 3D printing, in millimeters (STLOUT). EXPORT3D asks which.