Getting started with 123D Design

Download 123D DesignCAD programs have a reputation for being expensive, clumsy and hard
to learn. Autodesks 123D Design changes all that, with a desktop application thats fast, easy to
learn and free. Were going to build a simple project to demonstrate the basics of the softwares
tool set.
Once youve downloaded the software, open it up and youll see a floating window with all the
tool and menu elements incorporated within it. It doesnt run as a standard app on any platform,
but that means it looks the same on a Mac or a PC.

1. Take your measurements

Here in London I still get milk delivered by a real milkman (and yes, he
even whistles a jolly tune). The glass bottles are capped with a foil lid, but once opened the lid no
longer seals the bottle especially in transit. So I decided to design a 3D-printed replacement lid.
The first step was to measure the bottle top, which showed it to have an external diameter of
35.5mm and an internal opening of 27mm.
Even if youre used to working in inches, you should consider switching to metric for 3D
printing. Its more accurate, and more compatible with design and measurement software.

2. Choose your tools

The toolbar at the top contains all the tools youll need to get designing. The first icon is for socalled Primitives cubes, spheres, and so on. Click on this, then choose the Cylinder from the
pop-up choice beneath:

3. Draw the cylinder

Click the tool on the ground plane in the artwork window, and drag to set the size. As you do so,
youll see a pop-up showing the radius and height. You can also type numbers in here to set
precise measurements, which is more accurate than simply dragging the cylinder.
Our milk bottle has an outside diameter of 35.5mm, so lets give the cap a diameter of 40mm to
allow for the thickness of the filament. That means a radius of 20mm, so type in that figure.
As for the height, thats really a matter of comfort; I reckoned 15mm a little over half an inch
would be deep enough to provide enough of a surface to be able to twist it on and off easily.

4. Make the opening

To make the lid hollow, we need to use a different tool. The second batch of toolbar icons is
the Sketch set, so use this to select the Circle tool:

5. Set the size

The size of the bottle itself is 35.5mm, so lets make the opening 36mm in order to give it
enough clearance to slip on and off easily.
A diameter of 36mm means a radius of 18mm, so we can set that numerically just by typing the
figure into the box.

6. Choose to extrude
When you select any object by clicking on it, a tiny gear appears next to it. Clicking on this gear
pops out a range of tools that can be applied to the object. The third one along is Extrude, so
select this to begin the extrusion process:

7. Drag the extrusion

After choosing to extrude the shape, an arrow appears on the object which we drag to set the
depth of the extrusion.
Wed normally think of extrusion as a process by which a shape is given extra height, and thats
certainly a common use for it. But if we drag the arrow down rather than up, were able to sink it
into the cylinder, so creating a void inside.
We made the cap 15mm high, so lets set the depth of this hole to 13mm. That will leave a 2mm
thick base, which will both be enough to print on and enough to make a solid lid for the finished
cap.

8. Add a ring
The cap will be a slightly loose fit. Have a look at the shape of the bottle neck, and youll see
theres an indentation just below the top: this is where the original foil cap wrapped under to seal
it. We can create a ring that will fit into this indentation, holding the lid firmly in place.
To start, go to the Primitives section on the toolbar, and choose the Torus object:

9. Place the ring

When you add a new object to an existing one, youll be able to choose where to attach it.
Clicking on the interior of the base will position the torus there.

We only want a very thin ring a diameter of 2mm will be plenty. That means a radius of 1mm,
so we can type that in.
123D Design also gives us the opportunity to set the Center Radius, which sets how large the
ring is. The opening is 18mm, so if we set the radius to the same figure, the ring will project
1mm into the cap the Center Radius, as its name implies, is through the middle of the torus.

10. Lose the lid

When we now try to select the cylinder, we find we cant hit it because the circle we drew to
make the hole is in the way. Even though its now the lid of a hole, 123D Design still sees it as
being an object weve created.
The simple solution is to select it, and hit the Backspace key to delete it. Its done its job, and we
dont need it any more: the hole it created will still be there.

11. Move the ring

When we created the ring, we made it right at the bottom, lying on the inside of the cap (the cap
is, of course, upside down). We need to move it so it will snap under that rim on the bottle, which
is 5mm down from the top.

Its hard to see exactly what were doing from this angle, so lets change the
viewpoint. On the far right, youll see a cube with writing on it. This shows the current view. You
can change to the Front, Left and Top simply by clicking on that face; or you can view from an
edge or a corner, by clicking on it it will highlight when you roll over it. Try clicking on
different sections to see how the view changes: you can always click the Home icon to return to
the initial viewpoint.

Were clicking on the Front, so we can view the cap head-on. Clicking the Gear icon allows us to
select the Move option for the torus; lets drag it up by 5mm so its exactly in the right place:

12. The interior plug

Adding a plug that fits on the inside of the bottle will provide an additional seal, preventing the
milk from spilling out when the bottle is tilted or in transport. We can start to create this as a
simple cylinder, with a radius of 13mm. This gives a diameter of 26mm, which is small enough
to fit comfortably within the 27mm opening on the bottle.

13. Round the edges

Once the interior plug has been placed, all the elements of the cap have been included in the final
design. But we can make the cap more aesthetically pleasing, as well as more comfortable to
hold, by rounding off those hard corners.
Rounding edges and corners is called filleting (as opposed to chamfering, which means slicing
off the edges at a sharp angle). To begin, select the upper edge of the interior plug by clicking on
it it will highlight in blue and then, from the Modify menu, choose Fillet. You can also click
the Gear icon to select the Fillet option if you prefer:

14. Drag to round

You can now drag on the arrow, and as you do so

youll see how the hard edge is pleasingly rounded. If you prefer, you can type in a rounding
radius instead. On the plug, I used a radius of 4mm to get a large, smooth edge.

You can apply the Fillet operation to several edges at once. So if you click on the interior and
exterior edges of the top of the lid, as well as on the base, youll find you can round them all
together. Here, Ive applied a rounding of just 1mm.

15. Save the file

Clicking on the 123D Design logo in the upper left corner will pop open a menu that allows you
to Save your work. At the bottom of the menu is the Export button, and this brings up a dialog
that allows export in several different formats. Choose STL as the file type, and youll have a
printable file to work with.

16. The finished result

Creating the virtual model is all very well, but how does it work when its printed? Theres only
one way to find out.
It took about 25 minutes to print this cap, and when it was finished it fit neatly onto the bottle
top. This is one of the big advantages of using a digital micrometer to take initial measurements:
the more accurate they are, the more likely it is that the finished product will work.
The spill test was another matter. Would the model itself be watertight (or, in this case, milk
tight)? Would the cap fit snugly enough to prevent leakage? Again, experiment is the only way to
find out:

So what is Autodesk 123D?

123D is a Windows based 3D CAD program. It is a history free, Direct edit, Solid modeller
based on Autodesks Inventor Fusion.
And what is 123D for?

The idea of 123D is to help out those people who would like to be able to Design and Create
Physical objects for themselves, but who dont have the craft skills or the appropriate tools to
work the materials.

It used to be that in order to make things you needed these big expensive machines, Carl Bass
said. Now you can produce things at high quality, at relatively low volume and relatively low
cost.
123D does not create drawings. The idea behind 123D is that you can use it to Digitally
prototype your designs, which can then be created with 3D printing, CNC cutting or even
exported to your own Makerbot. Autodesk have partnered with Ponoco, Tech Shop and 3D
Systems to produce the Physical items.
So lets have a look at it!I had a lot of fun playing with 123D. For my first experiment I created a version
of the Gotshall Block which I recently showed you how to model with Autodesk Inventor.

The interface for 123D looks a lot like a stripped down version of Inventor Fusion.

Viewing and Navigating

If you use Autodesk Software you will notice the familiar Navigation Bar and View Cube. The
navigation bar has controls for Zooming, Panning, and orbiting as well as changing from
orthographic to perspective mode and Visual Styles.
The 123D View Cube has icons of a Human head on it rather than text, presumably to make it
more international.
123D Has built in support for your 3DConnexion Mouse

The Tool Bar

You might also notice that there is no Ribbon! Instead there is a just one simple tool bar. The tool
bar can be moved, but doesnt dock to the side of the screen like the the Navigation Bar does.

Clicking on the Toolbar brings up the Marking menu which is similar in function to Inventor
2012 and Inventor Fusion (more on this in a bit).

The Feature Browser

Down the left hand side of the screen is the Feature browser. Autodesk Inventor users will be
familiar with the way this works. Each Node in the browser represents a feature in the model.
You can edit the features in the model by clicking on the Node in the Browser.
You can also show and hide the Origin Planes and annotation planes from the Browser and
switch between pre-set views.

The big difference here is that Autodesk 123D is Not History based. So there is no need to sort
the feature tree or concern yourself with the order in which
you build your features.
Clicking on the Toggle Features icon shows or hides the
sub features in the tree.
Clicking the i allows a little tool tip to show up giving you
extra information about the feature
Clicking the Cross MAKES THE FEATURE BROWSER
DISSAPEAR! So dont do that.
Tip: If you do do that, you can get the Feature browser
back by going to Menu > Options > Controls
Controls at your Finger tips

123D is a direct modeller. You can simply click on a feature

and the tools you need will make
themselves available.
Right clicking away from he model will bring up the Marking Menu.
The tools that you need most are in the circle at the top.
The rest of the tools that are available to you at the current time are in
the content menu underneath.
The clever bit about the circle arrangement is that you can use Muscle Memory to trigger the
command with out selecting it. Right clicking and dragging in the direction of the command is
all you need to do.

As you progress you wont need to click on the buttons in

the circle any more.
This could also be a good feature to those wanting to use a
Pen tablet, instead of a Mouse.
Snap Bar and Toggle switches

Down in the bottom right hand corner of the screen you will see the Snap bar and a number of
toggle switches.

The Snap bar helps you set the accuracy of the sketching
grid snap and allows you to change units.
This is also where you can toggle the Visibility of Sketch
constraints, the sketch grid and Value inputs on and off.
The handy little Gauge in the corner is telling you how
much memory you have left.

First Impressions

123D Loaded without problems on both my Workstation and home Laptop. However my home
laptop doesnt have anywhere near the graphic card Oomph to take advantage of the Visual styles
such as Silhouettes and Reflections.
Using 123D is reasonably intuitive, but I didnt find it to be particularly smooth. The contextual
Icons often seem to be fighting for attention.
There are a few differences between 123D and Inventor that
caught me out.
Sketches can be used to create solids, but dont remain
associative to the solid. You can only apply sketch constraints after CTRL selecting some sketch
geometry, and I cant for the life of me work out how to edit work planes once theyve been
created.
123D is not parametric, so you cant create relationships between feature dimensions although
you can enter formula in the dimension input boxes, so perhaps there is a parametric engine
hidden under there somewhere
In conclusion

123D is fun and builds on a lot of the more user friendly additions to Autodesks software
toolbox, such as Head up display, marking menus and direct editing. Im sure that with practice
123D could be a really useful tool.