
It's the latest addition to their family of free 3-D modeling applications for the rest of us. Today, Autodesk is launching 123D Design. 123D has gone on to spawn a family of specialized apps, all linked together via cloud sharing and all aimed at making it as easy as possible to turn your ideas into physical designs.

They started their new push in 2011 with the release of 123D, a piece of desktop software meant to democratize 3-D design, and then turned heads by acquiring Instructables, a community for sharing DIY how-tos. If a revolution is coming, Autodesk wants to be at the forefront. 123D Design also doesn't require an always-on internet connection - though, obviously, sharing with a larger community of designers requires online access.For a company best known for being the maker of high-end software used in construction projects (NYC's Freedom Tower), industrial design (Tesla cars), and blockbuster Hollywood special effects ( Avatar), Autodesk sure has invested in a big way in the future of DIY. 123D Design, however, works well with tablets: For example, objects snap toward each other like magnets, making it especially easy to combine shapes. Selecting, dragging, dropping, and other actions don't work well with a touch device.

Exploring these two apps further, it turns out Tinkercad is great for desktop computers with internet access, but it doesn't work very well with tablets, even though it's a browser-based app. In fact, initially, it was unclear how 123D Design is different from another Autodesk app, Tinkercad. Most notably, this can all be done on an iPad, since 123D Design supports iOS devices as well as desktops. They can then access their profile from Autodesk’s 123D website and further manipulate or export their work into another app to send to a personal 3D printer. Users can then save their projects to a user profile and make them shareable, share links to social media, or order 3D prints of their work. Users can select from a panel of basic shapes to drop into their workspace and then manipulate them in many powerful ways that include combining, subtracting, resizing, beveling, hollowing out, and aligning. Earn a badge of recognition for teaching digital citizenshipġ23D Design is an easy-to-learn 3D-modeling app that lets users build complex models by combining simpler geometric shapes.

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