Tinkercad Autodesk

[Eloisa Stawasz]

Iam happy to announce that we have just signed a deal where Autodesk will purchase the Tinkercad site and core technologies. This is a great day for all Tinkercad users, Autodesk is a very enthusiastic and capable steward. There are two main impacts of this deal: the site is fully operational and Autodesk has some very exciting plans for Tinkercad.

The shutdown plan has been rolled back and effective immediately new users are again able to sign up for the site. Even better, at the request of Autodesk, we have supercharged the free plan. You can now create unlimited designs, all import and export functionality is enabled and ShapeScripts are turned on for free accounts. We have automatically upgraded all existing free accounts to this new powerful plan. This account will be offered for a limited time only so make sure you sign up as soon as possible.

Before signing the deal the we spent a lot of time talking to Autodesk engineers and product people about their vision for Tinkercad. We were impressed by the deep insight the Autodesk team had into the Tinkercad interface and the underlying technology. There is also a strong alignment on topics like furthering education and the vision of making design more accessible. But most of all we are very excited about the roadmap Autodesk has drafted for Tinkercad.

Oh my, oh my what happy news I just received in my mail inbox. I have visited this blog several times with what I thought was idle hope. My teary eyes are now glistening with joy :}. Thank you autodesk and thank you tinkercad for the effort and giving me the 3D starter tools. Soon I will have my second expo with my 3D jewellery design all because of tinkercad.

Just as I thought I would have found the perfect little program to do my 3D modelling, you disappeared. Now I have a second chance to discover what everyone else that has saying about this wonderful program. Thank you for coming back!

Great News indeed! In the past I have been on the paid plan, but I suspended my account while trying to learn other 3D software. Now I would like to re-activate my plan and go back to work. How do I re-activate?

This is great but what about us paid members who have stuck with you through thick and thin? You are now giving away free what we are still paying for. Will we be elevated to a place of honor amongst the mob or left to twist in the wind?

I obviously have only a single data point but my impression is that Autodesk is a pretty sophisticated buyer. In addition to getting the Tinkercad product they also now have all the rights to the Gen6 geometry kernel. The impact of Tinkercad is obvious, it sits very well with the work of the consumer group. The impact of Gen6 is more subtle. Of all the big CAD vendors Autodesk is now the only one that owns a production tested supercomputer class geometry modeling kernel. If you are familiar with how CAD tools operate you know how critical ownership of a kernel is.

The technology question requires a somewhat subtle answer. Autodesk purchased all Tinkercad assets including the revolutionary Gen6 geometry kernel. When we initially announced the shutdown the source code was organized such that a separation of Airstone and Gen6 looked nearly impossible. A few weeks ago we had a serendipitous breakthrough in how Airstone is built which cut this dependency. Once this happened the deal suddenly became possible.

Paid plans are currently not open to new enrollment. There are certain accounting restrictions around the transition period and we need to wait with enrollment until Autodesk has taken over completely.

This is amazing for CAD software. Im part of an FTC robotics team and we are usually required to use PTC Creo for CAD software, however, in my physics class today my teacher wanted to learn to use our maker bot and so she made us use Tinkercad. Boy am I glad she did, this is thousands of times easier to use than Creo and is much more fun for the artistic side of CAD. The first day of use and I already feel very comfortable with the features of Tinkercad. I just wanted to thank all of those at Tinkercad for this amazing software.

Tinkercad is a free-of-charge, online 3D modeling program that runs in a web browser.[1] Since it became available in 2011 it has become a popular platform for creating models for 3D printing as well as an entry-level introduction to constructive solid geometry in schools.[2]

Tinkercad was founded by former Google engineer Kai Backman and his cofounder Mikko Mononen, with a goal to make 3D modeling, especially the design of physical items, accessible to the general public, and allow users to publish their designs under a Creative Commons license.[3] In 2011, the tinkercad.com website was launched as a web-based 3D modeling tool for WebGL-enabled browsers,[4] and in 2012 the company moved its headquarters to San Francisco.[5] By 2012, over 100,000 3D designs had been published by users.[5]

In March 2017, Autodesk recommended users of the soon-to-be-retired 123D Sculpt migrate to Tinkercad (or Maya LT).[7] In May, Autodesk discontinued its 123D Circuits (Circuits.io) "Electronics Lab". The program's features were merged into Tinkercad.[8][9][10]

Tinkercad uses a simplified constructive solid geometry method of constructing models. A design is made up of primitive shapes that are either "solid" or "hole". Combining solids and holes together, new shapes can be created, which in turn can be assigned the property of solid or hole.[3] In addition to the standard library of primitive shapes, a user can create custom shape generators using a built-in JavaScript editor.

Tinkercad's Circuits section is a browser-based electronic circuit simulator that supports Arduino Uno microcontrollers, Micro:bit boards, or ATtiny chips. Code can be created using graphical CodeBlocks,[13] pieces of code that can be easily arranged with the mouse, or text-based code. Digi-Key praised Tinkercad in a 2022 article for its intuitive and fast tool capabilities, making it ideal for beginners.[14] The program offers pre-built circuits called "Starters" or circuits that can be built using separate components.

Tinkercad comes with built-in libraries for popular components, including the Adafruit Neopixel, Arduino Servo, and I2C display libraries. However, custom libraries cannot be selected or uploaded. The simulator also supports analog components that are fully simulated.

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