Features of Easy3D
If you do not understand all the bullet points below, do not despair. They are meant to give a very quick overview of the functionality, without going into detail on every item. When you have downloaded a trial version and run one of the interactive tutorials, you will know what these points are all about.
Geometric Entities
Your 3D model will mainly be built up from points, curves, surfaces, solids and beams (that are actually only a special type of solids!).
Points can be modelled in the following ways:
- By combining distances
- By dragging the mouse cursor along a guide plane
- By finding the intersection point between a curve and a surface
- At a curve end
- By projecting a point onto a plane
Surfaces can be modelled in the following ways:
- By skinning two or more curves
- As a circle
- As the sidewall of a cylinder (cone)
Solids can be modelled in the following ways:
- Extrude a surface along a curve
- A simple box
- A sphere
- A cylinder
- As the volume enclosed by a set of surfaces
- By revolving a curve around an axis
Beams are defined by two points and a crossection. The following crossection types are available:
- Bar (solid square)
- Pipe
- Box (hollow square)
- I
- L
- Channel
- Log (square with rounded corners)
Clip Planes
Clip planes are used to view the inside of the model by cutting it with a plane and only showing what's behind the plane.
General clip planes (planes with any direction) can be defined. Upto six clip planes can be active simultaneously.
Online Help
- When starting the program and from the help menu interactive tutorials can be run. These take you through what you need to know to run the program.
- Dialogs are equipped with a help button. When this is pressed, general information as well as detailed description of all the input is given.
- From the Help menu the Index help can be reached. Here you can do a search for specific strings in the help files.
Assemblies and Sub-Assemblies
Your Easy3D model is created as assemblies and subassemblies. This enables reuse of components from one workspace in another workspace. You may for instance have your own library of doors in one workspace. A door from this workspace may then be inserted into a new house workspace etc.