3DShapeShop can't make a cat. I'm thinking about adding something that can — on a separate page, with its own rules. Here's the honest version of what that would be, and you can tell me whether it's worth building.
You'd describe something, or upload a photo, and get back a 3D model of it — an animal, a character, an ornament, a bust. The things this app is deliberately bad at.
Everything here is a recipe: steps with numbers you can change forever. Widen the box and the handle stays centred. That's the whole idea.
Generated models don't work like that. They arrive as a solid lump of triangles — no steps, no numbers, nothing to adjust. You couldn't cut a hole in it or stand it on something, because there'd be nothing for those steps to grab hold of. So it belongs on its own page rather than pretending to be part of this one.
There's no point building a shop if nobody wants what's in it. So: if you'd use this, leave your email. If enough people do, I'll build it. If they don't, I'll leave it alone and say so.
One email when there's something to see, and nothing else. Not a newsletter.
You almost certainly don't need to generate one. Printables, MakerWorld and Thingiverse between them hold millions of free models, most of them better than anything a generator will give you, and already set up to print properly.
And if you want a cat-shaped cookie cutter — that this app can do today. Draw the outline on paper, photograph it, and use Trace a photo on the front page.
Things that come off the printer already moving. They print in one go, in one piece of plastic, with no screws, no glue and nothing to assemble — the parts are simply printed with a gap between them and never stick together.
Everything here depends on the gap between the pieces — and the good news is that the gaps in these designs are enormous by printing standards. The chain has two millimetres of air at every joint; the rattle has seven. Any printer that can print at all can manage that, so unlike most print-in-place designs, these are not a test of your machine.
What can go wrong is at this end, not yours. The shape is measured out on a grid before it is saved, and a gap thinner than one square of that grid is stepped straight over as though it were not there. The preview stays perfect and the saved file arrives welded solid.
Two things bring that on:
Making a design smaller. Shrink it and the gap shrinks with everything else, while the grid does not get finer to match. A chain that prints beautifully at 44 mm a link will weld at 18 mm.
Exporting at Draft. Each design says on its card which setting it needs. If you are not sure, use Fine — it costs you a minute.
You do not have to take our word for it: when you download a design whose pieces should be loose, the app counts the separate bodies in the file it just wrote and tells you if any of them fused. If it says nothing, they came out separate.
No supports. Supports are the enemy here — they will be printed into the very gaps that make the thing work, and you will never get them out.
Slow down the first layer and make sure the bed is clean. Every piece has to stick on its own; there is nothing holding the loose ones down.
Expect to free it by hand. Even a good print often needs a gentle twist to break the first bond. Flex it once and it should stay free.
Thicker is stronger. A chain with thin links is a chain that snaps. If a child will play with it, make the hoops fatter than looks necessary.
Nothing on this page is a special feature. Every one is a recipe made of the same steps as a tray or a bracket, and every one opens in the same editor, where you can change any number in it. The only thing that makes them move is that their pieces are placed so they never touch.
Generated figurines and organic shapes. This page isn't linked from anywhere and won't work without the passphrase. Every generation costs real money from your own account, so it tells you what it has spent.