Help › Getting Started

Placing Shapes

Choose a shape, then click where it goes, on the plate or any face.

Choose a shape from Create and it follows the pointer, so you can put it exactly where it's wanted: on the build plate, or on any face of what's already there.

A box picked up over a cylinder: on its top, centred, with guides saying so.
A box picked up over a cylinder: on its top, centred, with guides saying so.

Placing a shape

  1. Choose a shape from Create ▾ in the toolbar, or the Create menu in the menu bar: a Box, Cylinder, Sphere or Cone, a Box Hole or Cylinder Hole, or a part.
  2. Move the pointer over the view. A see-through copy shows where the shape would land: on the face under the pointer, standing out of it, or else on the build plate. The bar at the top says what's being placed.
  3. Click to put it down. It's added and selected, ready to resize or move.

Choosing a shape ends whatever other tool was on. One ⌘Z takes the shape away again.

Lining up

You rarely need to type a position:

  • Over a face, the shape lines up with the object below it, centred on it or with its edges, and pink guides say how.
  • Next to other objects on the plate, it lines up with their edges and middles in the same way.
  • Anywhere else, it snaps to the grid, which on a box's face counts from the face's edges (below).
  • Hold ⌘ to put it exactly where you click, lined up with nothing.
On the plate, a cylinder lined up with the middle of the box beside it.
On the plate, a cylinder lined up with the middle of the box beside it.

Distances to the edges

Over a box's face, or the flat end of a cylinder, cone or thread, teal lines show how far the shape is from the face's edges, so you can put it exactly where it's wanted:

  • On a box's face: the distance to each of its four sides, square to the side.
  • On a round end: the distance to the rim on either side, along the line through the two middles.
A cylinder picked up over a box's top, 7 mm from its left side and 4 mm from its back, and 12 and 23 mm from the other two.
A cylinder picked up over a box's top, 7 mm from its left side and 4 mm from its back, and 12 and 23 mm from the other two.

On a box's face the grid counts from the face's edges, so with 1 mm snapping the shape lands a whole number of millimetres from the nearer edge each way, even if the edges aren't on the grid. A shape hanging over an edge shows a negative distance, and a distance of 0 isn't shown. The distances show with ⌘ held too, and go as soon as the shape is put down.

Holes and parts

Holes are placed the same way, drawn striped so you can see what they'll cut. A countersunk or counterbored hole placed on a face sinks into it, so its top sits flush with the face, ready for a screw.

On a workplane

Right-click a face and choose Set Workplane Here, and the grid moves onto that face: shapes placed anywhere off another object land on the workplane instead of the plate, standing square to it. View › Reset Workplane puts the grid back.

See also