As mentioned in many posts on this forum and elsewhere there is currently no way to show model dimensions in exported 2d or 3D images or files. The “ working on it advice” goes back as far as 2016 and here in 2020 it is still not implemented.
I have used Shapr3D for a year now and am very impressed with it as a design tool but until it gets a dimensioning option built in to the app and not just through export to third party software like AutoCAD then Shapr3D is really just a convenient tool for creating pretty pictures. Excellent at doing that I agree but useless for the accurate conveyance of ideas and concepts to others involved in the usual design process.
Shapr3D developers please take note it is time you added this functionality if you wish to be taken seriously as a design tool contender in today’s world.
I hope you hear and can advise.
@Lesliev
I share your frustration that Dimensions need improvement, along with the ability to Type Annotations. The latter would enable a workaround for adding critical Dimensions.
There are workarounds for Dimensions but they do involve the insertion of additional Lines to enable them to be displayed:
However this is not satisfactory because Extension Lines, preferably Dashed/Dotted, need to be added. This consumes too much time and the output is still less than satisfactory, because only the Dimensions for one Plane can be displayed:
Workarounds can always be found however the need for practical implementation of useable functions is what separates professional software from consumer apps. Shapr3D is on the cusp of being useable to professionals but it still needs to fix some major shortcomings before it will enter mainstream design options. I can draw a 3 d design of my concepts perfectly well using paper and pencil or even Concepts but when I get serious about my design I need a serious piece of software with all the management options offered by Shapr3ds big brothers. Fusion360, inventor, 3dmax and AutoCAD and they are just the Autodesk options.
I really like the convenience and freedom an iPad based 3D design software gives me and accept it is in development but am not convinced the functionality a professional designer demands is top of the Shapr3D development list.
Interested to hear other opinions.
Very cool feedback, thanks a lot. We are working really hard to broaden the potential use cases of Shapr3D, and the majority of the Series A round we raised a 8 months ago will go into feature development. I am pretty sure that this feature will be implemented soon, now that we laid a solid foundation for future developments.
Thanks for the encouraging feedback. The app has come such a long way already and already offers designers a useable robust design interface. I am sure it will be a really serious contender for a place in professional designers library of software when it finally offer the additional functionality you are working on. Please keep up the development process and people like me will I am sure continue to support you.
We are scaling up our engineering team quickly to be able to deliver more this year, and we are not slowing down because of the pandemic, not even a little bit, quite the opposite. CAD is super feature heavy, and we have a good understanding of what we have to build, it just takes us some time to get there. But we are getting there!
Yes… I got very frustrated with lack of dimensions feature, especially when trying to import dimensioned models from AutoCad. It was, as they say… the last straw for me, and I cancelled my year’s subscription
I had before that app crash problem, with that triangular flashings if you remember. They still were here, but not so badly. They started after a longer session of work, and after a brake or a battery charge I was able to work. But in the last days the crash arrives after opening the file, not just the last one, but any one of them…
I am a designer, leading a team of 3 designers, 3 model makers, shapr3d is mine main modeling tool since one and half year, I have a lot of files, 3d sketches, I can’t even export them in fusion360, or in Files, or whatever to not loosing them.
This morning shapr made a reset, asked for a new login, I hoped this will solve the problem, but did not…
New thing is, that after the crash there is a kind of sparkling on my ipads home screen, on the dark parts… this is new, I see it in the last few days, and disappears after a few minutes, or if starting some other apps. I have no problem using Umake, or Procreate, Sketchbook, etc.
Hi, I am really sorry to hear that. It sounds like a hardware issue to me, because we’ve never heard about this issue from anyone else. When you first reported it, our dev team spent a lot of time investigating the problem, but we did not find anything. We also haven’t seen this issue on any of the 30 iPads in the company, and without being able to reproduce it we can’t really fix it. I would suggest to try it on another iPad if possible.
After my letter I made one more try, and like an Eastern Magic, I was able to work from that moment till now, with some quick crash/restart, and recharge trough the dinner brake…
I begin to believe also that this must be a hardware problem. I am looking on the net, if someone has this kind of sparkling, but did not find any for now! I have a friend who both a new ipad pro a week ago, I installed the shapr for him - is an architect, and even older than me, - so I will borrow it for a day or two… Let’s see…
Thank You for Your time!
Csaba
Btw., I sent all my files in the dropbox…stay safe stay in the box…
I totally agree. I use fusion 360 to make technical drawings from the 3D models made in Shapr. (They have a really good engine, so please make something similar! ) but it is a hassle all together because my complex file-organization gets totally lost when importing .step files to fusion. So a good Fusion360 like technical drawing option is really , really needed.
Good morning Istvan, any news on this one please? I am a Pro subscriber and really would love to see the ability to dimension incorporated, otherwise I may as well go back to using Fusion360?
Best regards
There’s a dimensioned drawing export feature in the export menu… but its really a pain- first you have to select all the lines or faces you want in the drawing and project them onto a plane. ( for isometric you have to create a construction plane from the isometric view. ) Then you have to open the plane as a sketch and Select and then Lock all the dimensions you want to show in the drawing. Then you do the export function… but it only exports to DXF or DWG.
I really wish this worked more facilely.
And I really wish it could export a simple illustrator vector file… or even just a PNG or PDF with all dimensions showing.
An ideal dimension export function would simply ask which view you wanted to export and automatically project the visible model parts onto a plane in that orientation… and open that sketch in a space where you could just tap on each line or combination of lines you wanted dimensioned- as well as automatically including the bounding extents of bodies because the linear lengths of fillets and chamfers are not added in selecting these entities.
Finally, it would ask what format you wanted the drawing exported, and include adobe vector format or PDF in that list. A format importable into Pages or InDesign or even Word so the user could add text or other notations, or composite several views in one sheet.
And one more thing- Whatever view you pick, it should not project any hidden edges or backside faces to the dimension drawing. If I need dimensions from the far side, or an alternate isometric angle, I can just select that view next and export each view independently.
this would dramatically simplify the process of making sense of the projection.
This would be a different functionality than the project tool proper… but wireframe drawing are pretty useless in dimensioned drawings.
