Please follow the format below for requesting a feature.
It is too easy to accidentally mess up a design in a way that you cannot easily revert by making more changes to it. Adding versioning to Shapr3D would be a godsend for my designing experiences here.
As an example, I am designing a drawer-type object that I can 3D print. When I want to polish the design, I’ll go around on all the edges and round them so it’s not sharp to the touch. I’ll then print the object and decide what I like and don’t like and then go to update the designs with my findings. What this means though is that I have to un-round all the corners so that I can get fully sized walls to interact with. Sometimes this is just a few minutes of work, which is an annoyance but not a huge deal. But sometimes in the process of rounding corners I’ve altered the object enough that it can’t “unround” the corners and I end up having to make invasive alterations that result in an object that is constructed differently (extra sub-parts) than the original was. Not only that, but this usually takes 3x longer to get back to a working state than unrounding the corners would.
I can’t express how much I would love a Versioning feature in Shapr3D. Or if there is one, I will bless the person that shows me how to use it. It would be SOOOOO nice to just “commit” the version of the design before rounding the corners (or “branch” off the design to do the corner rounding) and then be able to easily jump back to a specific version/state.
Additionally, it would be very very nice if I didn’t have to keep copying a design (or copy/moving an object in a design) to start a new “version”. Sometimes those versions don’t work out. Sometimes I have very frequent iterations, which results in a LOT of those copied files. In both scenarios though I just have a TON of files created and it’s very hard for me to keep organized with the way it currently works.
This feature should allow me to create “checkpoints” or “commits” in a design with the ability to go back to a specific “checkpoint” and begin again from that point.
Additionally, this feature should ideally allow me to organize these “checkpoints” or “commits” in some manner — like “branches” or “versions” of the design.
So with this feature I should be able to do the following:
- Create a design and update it to the point where I want to validate some stuff on it.
- Save a “checkpoint” on the design for “pre-rounding of corners - v1”
- Continue to do superficial things like round the corners.
- Create a new “checkpoint” on the file for “rounded corners - v1”
- Come back to the design and easily go back to the “pre-rounding of corners - v1” and manipulate the object further till I’m ready to validate again.
- Create a new “checkpoint” for “pre-rounded corners v1.1”
- Etc. Etc. Etc.
Additionally it would be awesome if you could create “branches “of checkpoints or “versions” of the design within a file. So I could do this:
- Create a design and get it to a working point.
- Create a new “version” of the design: “Version 1.0.0”
- Create a checkpoint for “pre-rounding corners”
- Alter the design with superficial things.
- Create a checkpoint with “rounded corners”
- Go back to “pre-rounding corners”
- Make small alterations that don’t require a new version (say the object’s dimensions were incorrect and you discovered the mistake).
- Make a checkpoint: “fixed width of drawer”
- Make superficial changes.
- Checkpoint: “rounded corners”
- Come back and want to alter the design significantly. Create a new version called “Version 1.0.1” from a previous checkpoint — “fixed width of drawer”.
- Make significant alterations to the design.
- Decide those changes weren’t good and go back to “Version 1.0.1” at checkpoint “fixed width of drawer” and make new changes.
Etc. Etc.
Without this feature users:
- Can’t easily organize their thoughts
- Can’t go back to a specific “good” state if they bork their project on accident (and can’t “undo” the borking).
- Have to create a buttload of files to compensate for the lack of this feature.
- Can’t have confidence in Shapr3D or the safety of their designs there.
- Can’t natively and naturally “version” their designs.
- Can’t have many different variations of a specific design without creating a plethora of jumbled files.
This is a “blocker” in the sense that it’s stopping me from excelling at Shapr3D. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had to just throw away a design because I accidentally mutated the design enough that it became less work to just start over than it was to try and undo the changes.
It’s true that you can share the file and such, but that’s such an intensive process. I ALWAYS want to share the file the exact same way, but it still takes me several steps including putting my pencil down, editing a text field in the exact same way, and going through the share menu to the same location each time. Overall, the effort is enough that it dissuades me from doing this frequently, and often it is enough work that I lose my train of thought that prompted the “version stash” by the end of it. This feature