Free 3D Modeling Software - 3D Printing: Build your Own 3D Printer and Print your own 3D Objects - page 107

Figure 6.6 Familiarize yourself with the basic Tinkercad buttons and menus.
Starting from the right side of the screen, you'll find a scrollable window that con-
tains a variety of things: letters, numbers, shapes, and a few other items. Just above
this scrolling list are six buttons that are nothing more than shortcuts to jump to
particular items. For example, click the big A and the scrolling list jumps to the
letters. The big numeral 1 will jump you to numbers. You get the idea. (And if you
work through the tutorials, you'll learn about the other buttons and what those cat-
egory items are and how they are used.)
To the left of the shortcut buttons you'll find a small number of tools that include
Undo and Redo buttons, an Adjust drop-down menu, and Group and Ungroup but-
tons. Again, working through the Quests will give you some practice with these,
but I also use most of them in Chapter 7 and explain them in more detail there.
At the bottom of the screen below the Group and Ungroup menu buttons is the
Edit Grid button and the Snap Grid setting. These two items are very useful for
the accuracy of designed objects, and I show you in Chapter 7 how to use the Edit
Grid button to change the size of the workspace so it matches your 3D printer's
print bed size; this way, you'll know that whatever you're designing will fit with-
in the allowable X and Y print area (length and width) of your 3D printer. You
will need to monitor the height of any objects you design to make sure they are no