Autodesk’s Tinkerplay App: Fun with 3D Design and 3D Printing

Sanjeev Pal posted 2015-03-25

It's no secret that 3D design and 3D printing are used for both personal and commercial purposes. Autodesk has catered to both of these markets with its portfolio of 3D design software and the its printing platform. Last year, Autodesk introduced  3D printer EMBER and Spark, an open software platform for 3D printing.

From the get go, Autodesk had opened up the software and the resin tray of Ember. Though there have been several reports on the predicted high growth of 3D printing, in reality it has experience some commercial adoption issues. Autodesk has been vocal on the “we haven’t delivered on the promise of 3D printing.” That's one of the main reasons it has adopted a community-based open development approach to 3D printing hardware, software, and material science. Autodesk also plans to make Ember’s CAD designs and material formulations  publicly available. 

 Recently, Autodesk announced the release of Tinkerplay, a free 3D design and 3D printing app  targeted at kids of all ages.  This app is based on Autodesk’s Modio app acquisition. Tinkerplay comes with templates that can be customized to produce different creatures like ninja, scorpion etc. After the design is completed, the '.thing' or ST file can be sent for 3D printing andtransform the virtual figure into an actual toy. Many online 3D printing services such as Sculpteo, Shapeways, 3Hubs etc. allow consumers to own a personal 3D printer.

 Tinkerplay hopes to make 3D design and printing fun for kids by making it  into a game. The ease with which kids can design and create their 3D printed toys removes the obstacle of learning a complicated design software. This approach will appeal to kids in a similar way that Lego does. But it goes one step further by making design software available for the masses.

Tinkerplay features, such as drag and drop of parts, make it easy to use for kids as well as professional designers. The Tinkerplay app is available on various mobile platforms, including iOS, Android, Windows and Windows phones. Users can download the app for free from the App Store, Google Play or the Windows Store for Windows 8.1 users.