Tinkercad Car Models

[Abbie Buesing]

Ialready have a model created and finished in tinkercad, first you need to hit the export button (first screenshot) then chose to export the file as a .OBJ or .GBL (second screenshot) so the colours will be exported too, I am using .OBJ for this though

After exporting the file click 'show in folder' (or equivalent) and move the file to somewhere where you can manage it (I put it on my desktop) make a regular file next and move both files from the .ZIP file to your regular file, there should be 2 files in the zip folder regardless of weather you exported to an OBJ or a GLB

in the second screenshot I went into file, import, OBJ (or your equivalent) and then you should be seeing something similar to the third screenshot, in the bottom corner will be your files but I've blocked it out because I have other projects that I want to keep a surprise

after importing the file it wont look like it did in tinker cad so to return it to that state find the symbol in the first screenshot that should be on the bottom right of the screen if you have selected the right file, next scroll down and find the 'normals' tab and tick the box that says 'auto smooth' and you should be left with something like the third screenshot

the 8 highlighted buttons in the first screenshot can be used to modify files, the first button selects objects, the second button isn't important for this but the third button is used to move a selected file, the fourth button is used to rotate a file and the fifth is used to change the size, this file I imported was too large and facing the wrong way so I rotated it and used the scale button while holding shift to shrink it down to the correct size

the first screenshot is highlighting a button that will appear when you select an object, this is how you can change the colours and textures of the file but this gets complicated so I will probably make another tutorial on how to use these, in the future

the second screenshot highlights 4 buttons that change the view of the selected object, if you are trying to make glass or metal textures use the third button, if you're using lights use the fourth button

the first 2 screenshots show my angling and moving the camera to better see the model, to see what the camera sees click the button that is highlighted in the third screenshot and click it again to stop the camera view

to change the settings on the light sources, select the light source you want to edit and click the green light bulb logo highlighted in the second screenshot, you can mess around with the settings like changing the colour of the light or how bright the light is with the power button, the light source I chose was a point light source but sun and spot light sources do the same thing but can also be angled

Me again! I recently discovered Tinkercad... and I see that it's owned by Autodesk as well. Tinkercad has a Sim Lab... can you import Fusion 360 models into it? I see that you can import Tinkercad models into 360. I'm surprised something as simple as Tinkercad would have the ability to simulate gravity, etc., but 360 does not. Thanks!

1. Add a level of sub-surface resolution to the model. I googled how to add a sub-surface to a model, and attempted to do it. But that option was grayed out for my model. Apparently, TinkerCAD models cannot get a sub-surface attribute in DAZ.

You should be able to add sub-d to any object in DS once imported. I'm not at my computer right now so I can't check for sure where it is, but I believe it is under Edit > Object > Geometry > Convert to SubD or something like that. If that's greyed out for you though, I have no idea why - I've never run into that. Did you double check that you have your model selected in the scene tab?

The triangulation sounds like something in the export settings from your modeling program; I've never had DS triangulate faces on import before and I've been importing a lot of things modeled in Blender lately.

That was kind of my thought too - that's why I asked to see what the mesh looks like in the source modeler. I suddenly can't see the original screenshots but it might not be too bad to clean up if that's the case. I know you can use booleans without too many issues with some planning, but it's not an art I've mastered myself - it's very hit or miss.

Yes. The model I made has long and skinny tri poly everywhere. TinkerCAD is a boolean modeler. And TinkerCAD is also so over-simplistic that it has no option to view just the wireframe/mesh. So I can't show you the wireframe. But I did manage to import it into Blender, which does have a wireframe view option. And yes, "garbage mesh".

It's impossible to answer "how to fix it" without seeing it. Since you have it in Blender, can you take a screenshot or two of the problem areas in edit mode and post them? You probably have to basically retopo parts (maybe all) of it but it's hard to give more specific advice blind.

I ran into problems. I deleted the .obj file that I orginally had no problem imorting into Blender. So I had to export an .obj file from TinkerCAD again. But this new replacement .obj export from TinkerCAD could not be properly imported into Blender. Something changed. I don't know what.

But here's my problem: How do I export this nice cleaned-up mesh to DAZ Studio without losing my ability to color the piston head differently than the piston rod? They are separate meshes in the original TinkerCAD model. But I don't know if my export/import process merged them or not. I'm an ignorant nubie who does not know the proper settings to use when importing and exporting things from Blender. There are all these settings options that I don't understand. So I don't know what I'm gonna get when I transfer this to DAZ Studio.

It looks like you've gone a bit overboard with the 'cleaning' and you've turned the problematic but controlable triangles, into large complex shapes with unknown number of sides, these are called n-gons (where n stands for a big number!).

While an n-gon may work in the program that created it, there is no way to predict how another program will cope with that n-gon which is why modellers go to great lengths to avoid creating them. They stick to 3 and 4 sided polygons wherever possible. It's why TinkerCAD created the triangles in the first place, to avoid creating n-gons.

That limited dessolve mesh on the right won't work in DS... The problem area around the holes and nubs isn't triangulated or turned into quads... So as pointed out before, it's face is just a giant N-gon...

I'm no expert, but I think I would try temporarily dissolving the big part of the face surrounding all those circular holes and domes, to see what remains. Your screenshot makes it look like either (a) DS is trying to stretch that one face everywhere, like taffy in a pulling machine, because it has too many vertices around its edges, or (b) there's more than one face there trying to share the same space, made up of various oddly shaped polys. If you remove that one face and everything else looks good, you know you need to cut up that face into smaller polys to fix the problem. If you remove that one face and find others laying under it with crosslinked vertices, you know you have to get rid of them first.

If cutting up the one face is an answer, you might surround each round part with an octogon and then make little quads that connect the inner "circle" faces to the octogons. Then your problem figuring out how to cut up the rest of the face becomes easier because you have way fewer vertices to worry about.

In my case, when 3D objects are imported, they lose their core patterns. Object was created in Tinkercad.

For example, if you create a transparent 3D object and import it into Cospaces, it will not be transparent.

Is there any way around this? Thank you tinkercad795591 90.8 KB

You can build models directly in Tinkercad, but you also have the option to load already existing models using Import. When you're finished working, use the Export option to save your file outside of Tinkercad.

After you've loaded your file you'll get a second window. Here you can choose if your file loads in using Millimeters or Inches. It is usually suggested to load using Millimeters, as sometimes size anomalies can happen when loading using Inches.

There are a ton of great design on Thingsverse and I would like to know if I can change some of the dimensions on an existing STL downloaded from Thingsverse? I saw a great design to what I need but it was a little too big to fit what I need. Is there a way to change a specific part of the design instead of scaling everything overall.

If you take into consideration that Shapr3D is CAD-Program based on a (Para)-SOLID-Kernel, it is way less strange that it is not capable of editing MESH-Files. (Shapr3D is not meant for Sculpting, at least in my oppinion.)

BUT (and this is something I find extraordinary): You can in fact import the STL-File into Shapr, Add geometry with Shapr-features and unite the bodies, or subtract them! That way you can make a mould of a STL-file, if you want.

Hmm STL files are sculpting? I am not using Shapr3d professionally, I design stuff with it I print. Sometimes I find something where the wheel is already invented on Thingiverse for example, just not exactly as I need it. In fact that happens a lot. Now altering that model is not possible. I have to rebuild it with shapr3d which is time consuming and unnecessary as the model already exists.

Shapr3d is such a sophisticated program I can not believe it can not translate an mesh object to its parasolid CAD model if it can export it the other way round.

If its technically possible to tranlate a mesh cube to a rectangle and pullup in Shaper3d, just to mention an easy task, it would be a killer feature.

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