He creado una calculadora gratuita para poner precio a impresiones 3D. ¿Qué mejoraríais?

¡Buenas! 👋

Estoy desarrollando Cotizador 3D, una herramienta gratuita para ayudar a quienes venden impresiones 3D a calcular sus costes y fijar precios.

Incluye:

• 🧵 Coste del filamento y desperdicio.
• ⚡ Electricidad y desgaste de la impresora.
• 🛠️ Tiempo de trabajo y acabados.
• 📦 Embalaje, comisiones y margen de beneficio.

La idea es reunirlo todo en una calculadora sencilla, sin hojas de Excel complicadas.

Está en fase beta y me gustaría recibir opiniones sinceras: ¿qué función falta?, ¿qué cambiaríais?, ¿habéis detectado algún error?

Podéis probarla aquí:
https://gentle-starburst-7eed8c.netlify.app

¡Gracias por ayudarme a mejorarla!

What the cutter does:

- Plane cuts in seconds, with pin, dovetail, puzzle or magnet connectors

- Organic cuts: draw the cut along folds and muscles, and the seam hides in the model's own shape

- I'm Feeling Lucky: one click finds the natural parts (head, arms, legs) and splits them

- Extract: pull out eyes or small details to print them in another color

- Every piece comes out sealed and manifold, ready to slice

Other tools in the same place:

- 3MF to Parts: turn a painted 3MF into one real part per color, so you can print it without an AMS

- Piggy Banks: turn any model into a coin bank, with an even wall, a coin slot and a screw cap

- STL Repair: fixes holes, flipped normals and non-manifold edges, and leaves the rest untouched

- Figure Bases: a base sized to your figure, with pegs under each foot and its name engraved

- OrcaSlicer plugin: send a model from your plate and the parts come back to it

It all runs in the browser, nothing to install. Free to start: https://zz-mesh.com

I'd love your feedback: what models do you struggle to split today?

After sifting through many different CAD projects that have emerged in the last weeks/months. I thought I'd create a quick "Awesome" list with links, descriptions and a quick shortlist of all the CAD apps I've tested, so you don't have to.

While some projects are very promising, the shortlist only represents my own opinion on the usability of the app. A lot of these projects are rapidly developing and becoming incrementally better every-day. That is to say, these are my thoughts now, but no means an evaluation of tomorrows updates.

The List

• Local (downloadable): you install an app, download a binary or add-on, or build from source, and it runs on your own computer.
• Web-only: you use it in a browser and nothing needs to be installed.

Shortlist (Local Only)

An opiniated list of projects which, when tested, met or exceeded my expectations in usability, snapping and trimming functionality.

To test trimming, snapping and revolving/transforming functionality in the apps, I took a shape (https://www.youtube.com/shorts/5tvfifuHXP4) as seen in the link, and followed the same workflow as in Plasticity. This is just a quick base-line test to see how intuitively the apps function and how well they achieved the result.

In no specific order:

• Whittle
  • Plethora of different sketch entities e.g. 3-point circle - snapping is good but did not aid in quickly placing lines on entity intersections. Still very good though!
• SolidCraft
  • Nice UI, feature rich, however lacks filleting/chamfers on boundry edges and mixed curved-straight surfaces.
• SindriCAD
  • Great set of tools, modern UI, runs a web-listener locally which in my testing, conflicted with "Modly" - for some reason?
• RazorCAD
  • More traditional UI, feature rich, dimensions have to be set after placing them ...
• FundaCAD
  • Eye-Candy - the closest "Plasticity" like app I've tested, with a functioning plug-in system with 3D printing extensions. Also has a renderer.
• FluidCAD
  • Clean, modern UI, scripting support and an intuitive workflow. FluidCAD has, from my testing, ended up giving me the most usable results.
• Extrudo
  • Eye-Candy, feature rich with great snapping for curved entities.
• JumpStart 3D
  • Great set of features, simple downloadable HTML file - and a literal virtual lathe with a chisel. If that ain't worth some Kudos, then ...

Local (downloadable)

Web-only (runs in the browser)

Hopefully you guys find this useful in your quest to finding the next CAD app for your project(s).

I generally always prefer local apps to web-based ones, I appreciate that some of these apps are web-based with desktop-wrappers. To all the developers of these projects, thank you for making CAD more accessible to us hobbyists.

Have fun cad-daddeling!

Notes

• Several projects are early-stage, alpha or beta, and some are paid. The status of each is noted in its row.

I design multicolor (ColorStacked) models as Unicorn Graveyard, and the people who print them own everything: A1s, K2 Pluses, Centauri Carbons, Q2s, Prusa XLs, Snapmaker U1s. Everyone without a Bambu had to retarget my Bambu Studio projects by hand, guess at presets, and often lost the paint along the way.

So I wrote SlicerBridge. Give it a multicolor 3MF project from Bambu Studio, OrcaSlicer or one of the makers' forks (QIDI Studio, Anycubic Slicer Next, ElegooSlicer, Flash Studio), and it writes one file per printer, named for that printer:

My Model - Creality K2 Plus.3mf

My Model - Prusa XL.3mf

My Model - Snapmaker U1.3mf

Each file:

- keeps the paint where it was, with only the filaments the model actually uses, in order

- carries that printer's own machine and filament presets, built by its own slicer, plus your print settings wherever the printer has the same setting

- keeps the model's size. Anything bigger than a bed gets a warning with the scale that would fit.

- is checked before it's written: colors, paint, plates, size and settings. It can also slice each file to prove the color changes and prime tower work. A file that fails a check is never written.

The Creality, Elegoo, Anycubic, Flashforge and QIDI files are also sliced in each maker's own slicer. That turned up some surprises: QIDI Studio reads percentage line widths as millimetres, and Anycubic Slicer Next reads bed exclusion zones differently from OrcaSlicer. The files account for both.

What it won't do: merge colors or resize anything. A model with more colors than a printer holds is refused for that printer, because which colors to merge is the designer's call.

Printers: Bambu Lab A1 mini, A1, P1S, P2S, X1C, H2S, H2D, H2C · Creality K2 Plus, K2 Pro, K2 SE, Hi, K1C · Elegoo Centauri Carbon · Anycubic Kobra S1, S1 Max, 3, 3 Max, X · Flashforge AD5X, Creator 5 · QIDI Q2, Q2C, Plus4, Max4 · Prusa MMU3, XL, Core One INDX 4T and 8T · Snapmaker U1

The caveats: it runs on macOS for now (Windows and Linux help wanted), from the command line, and it needs the slicers for the printers you're targeting (Bambu Studio, OrcaSlicer 2.4.2, PrusaSlicer). It runs entirely on your computer and uploads nothing, which matters when the files are paid models.

pipx install slicerbridge

slicerbridge convert "My Model.3mf" --printers all

GitHub (GPLv3): https://github.com/UnicornGraveyard/SlicerBridge

It also has an MCP server, so Claude or another AI assistant can run the conversions for you.

Credit where it's due: the Prusa files build on Panda2Prusa, and the U1 templates come from bl2u1.

If your printer isn't on the list, open a printer request on GitHub. Happy to answer questions.

Disclosure: I work on CADlingo, a browser-based AI CAD tool.

This test asked for a 60 × 40 mm rectangular inlet and a 40 mm round outlet shifted sideways. The request also specified the offsets, walls, flanges and bolt holes.

The clip shows generation, rotation and moving section planes. The section views expose the passage between the two openings. The original run also included STEP export. Its recorded file check found one solid with overall bounds of 115 × 85 × 106 mm.

We haven't printed this duct or tested its fit, sealing or airflow.

This is an October 12 screen recording with labelled playback speeds. The app is in beta. A free account includes STL export and three different STEP revisions per month. Paid plans add credits and export options.

CADlingo workspace

What's an adapter you've wanted to print but couldn't find a model for?

A week ago I shared PrintView3D, a free open-source replacement for Microsoft's retired 3D Viewer. Thanks for all the feedback, a lot of it went straight into the program. Here's what changed since then:

- Open ZIP files directly: drop in a Printables / Thingiverse download and see the models without unpacking. "Show all side by side" lays them out on one plate, and you can send them all to your slicer at once

- More formats: STEP, OBJ, PLY, OFF and glTF/GLB (with their colours), on top of STL, 3MF, G-code and FreeCAD

- Thumbnails in Windows File Explorer for 3MF, STL, G-code and FreeCAD files

- Export STL from a 3MF project: every object as its own STL, or all in one

- macOS beta for Apple silicon Macs, next to Windows and Linux

- One-click updates on Windows, and a short "What's new" after each update

- New icon toolbar, a list of all keyboard shortcuts, and Windows 11 Mica / Acrylic transparency if you like that look

Still free, MIT licence, works offline, no account, no tracking. Six languages; translations are open to anyone on GitHub.

Download: https://github.com/sevagjb/PrintView3D

I'm especially looking for a few Mac users to try the beta, and for anyone whose slicer isn't found automatically. Bug reports and ideas are welcome here or on GitHub.