What’s new from the developer’s desk? Read on to learn all about our latest feature.
Creating patterns or shapes with repeating structures can be, well, repetitive if you have to do it manually. The Duplicate shortcut key in Tinkercad has a feature called “smart duplication” that can help you avoid this tedious work.
“Smart duplicate” is like a short-term memory that knows what you just did and will repeat it for any new duplications. For example, let’s take this coin and make a 6 x 6 grid:
Press the Cmd+D / Ctrl+D shortcut key to duplicate the coin and move it backwards a bit. Then press the duplicate shortcut key again, and a third copy appears with the same offset. Press the shortcut key three more times and you have six coins at regular intervals:
Now we have one column of coins. Creating the other columns works just the same. Select the six coins, press the Duplicate shortcut key, move the new objects to the right, and then press Duplicate again a couple of times until you have enough coins:
Smart duplication also understands rotation, so you can use it to create spiraling shapes:
Is that enough “wow” to get you through Wednesday? We sure hope so! As always, let us know what you think.
Enjoy!
Tinkercad Team
Yay, awesome, thank you!
Thanks, JuliaDee =)
Pretty cool. I accidentally discovered that when making a gear shape, it made the process quick!
Sweet! We love accidental finds!
Wow… first mirroring and now this. You guys are rocking my world
Woohoo! Likewise!
Nice, this is exactly what I need.
Good to hear! This has been on our to do list for some time now, so it feels good for us to finally get it out =)
I had a little suggestion for an eventual feature – can there be an option to convert a prism face into a rotated solid? Mating the 3 toruses to cylinders, etc. has been causing a bit of mess when the top circle doesn’t seam with a cylinder of it’s own diameter.
actually I say that but I just went bad into my model and it’s seamless
Feature request still stands!
LOL! Got it! Thanks for the idea(s) listed here, Joseph!
went *back into
Sorry, this is my last self reply: Another feature request: I really wish I had a way to auto-create a circle tangent to non 90° angles.
The only reason I suggest these as something that might not be out of place in your interface is because there is the one fantastic surface selection feature of workplane placement. I don’t know if either is a feature the big CAD companies have a patent on. :/
and on that note Thank you so much for providing this tool!
Well thank you for using Tinkercad =) Hmmm, that’s another good request. We’ll see what we can do about it!
Cool new feature. Just tested it and could create easily very nice designs. Also very helpful in most designs. I wished that you had that before. Would have saved me a lot of time…
However, many thanks by all means. This is a great added value.
Haha, Jochen! We wish we did, too =) Thanks for the kind words and support!
Nice, I have been doing this manually, this is a big timesaver.
Excellent! We’re glad you think so, and it’s nice to hear from you, Perry!
Hi, Maybe i misunderstood the directions
here was what i thought they were
initially copy using ctrl/d
move the copy
ctrl/d should repeat the copy and offset.
for me it just copies in place
what did i miss?
(i just got my web gl netbook back online!!!) (my main pc doesn’t do web gl)
Ok i figured out the issue.
it only works if the moves are done with mouse.
I was using the arrowkeys to move and then the smart duplicate doesn’t work
My problem is I use the arrowkeys almost exclusively!
HMMM… My computer can’t do this…. Pls help.