Hey there, I’m super excited to have Shapr3D on Windows! I noticed a quick mention of the app during the recent Surface launch event, and went digging for the app in the store. Thank you for your work on this!
I’m a bit of a weird use case, since I work with a number of Surface devices and move around between them. But I’m wondering / a little worried about where the files are stored as I really don’t want to lose any of the great work that I’m already doing in this app!
I can’t seem to find them within the usual Windows user profile places (e.g. documents). It would be great to have them in docs, since they could then follow me around across devices. Could you let me know where to look, and if you have any plans on bringing them into the standard documents folder?
Anyway, If you need any testing on Windows pen based devices, Surface Pro X, Pro 7+, Go 2, Studio 2, or Hub - I’m loading it up on all of them! I’m coming from Fusion 360, and this app is an absolute dream for pen and touch users compared to fusion! It means that I can finally design wherever the inspiration strikes, not just at the desk! While I love Fusion and it is very powerful, the UI is just horrible IMO.
Looking forward to (let me know if I’m missing somethings, but have read about some of these coming in the forums)
Mouse customization options
Parameters
Calculations
Easier / more flexible section views
I’ve subscribed already, and I’m planning a YT video as we speak.
Yeah, it appears to me that the app is using the UWP app file space (C:\Users[username]\AppData\Local\Packages\Shapr3D.Shapr3D […] \LocalState\workspaces), which is a little bit of a worry - just from the perspective of backup.
Export is an option for backup at least, but it’s not great. Anyway, hopefully the devs will update us on plans for this.
The other issue that I’m encountering is that the app is requesting that I log in every time I switch device.
Anyway, still loving the UI, and excited to see how this app develops on Windows.
Hi and welcome! It’s great to have someone on board with such an extensive experience on different Surface devices. We happened to have all of those you mentioned in our test lab except the little Go, but we are absolutely interested in any feedback you have.
Others covered most of the information around file sharing & sync. The bottom line is that our design storage is strictly internal at the moment: we can’t offer any guarantees around compatibility, integrity and automatic upgrades unless they are handled by our app and only our app, and this is the main reason they are “hidden” under the app’s UWP file storage. We’ll add automatic backup and sync between devices (including across OSs) very soon. Until then the best option for backup and transferring files between devices is exporting them into .shapr files that are shared between devices via OneDrive or something something similar. It’s indeed a hassle, and we are working on making it a much better experience real soon.
Mouse button customization is quickly becoming the top requested improvement. We are working on it as we speak.
I assume by calculations you mean being able to enter quick calculations instead of just constants when specifying dimensions. That’s a great idea and it’s on our backlog, but I don’t have a timeframe for that at the moment.
With parameters are you referring to parametric design in general? If so, that’s a big question that we are exploring these days. Shapr3D is a direct modeling tool that many of our users find a better approach, but a parametric approach indeed has huge advantages for many applications, too. Combining the two without ruining the UX is a big challenge. We are working on this, but I can’t offer you a timeline for that.
Just to clarify: would you like to improve section views during modeling or how they are specified in engineering drawings?
Thanks Peter. Yes, I’d noted some comments on mouse button customisation that you’d shared on the forum which would be great. I saw some discussion of calculations too - yes in dimensioning. I guess that’s especially handy with parametric design, which is what I was thinking about with parameters. I love your UI approach, and would not want to force it to become more Fusion like (ew!). But it is pretty handy to be able to link many elements of a design together and change them all at once. I’m no expert, and this is really a hobby / side line for me.
And lastly, I’ve figured out how to get a section to show on a construction plane. But i’d love that to be easier to do (less steps) to be able to move it through the plane in realtime. Not sure if there is a way to do that now. It’s for modelling, not engineering drawings.