Chapter 4
Exploring the User Interface

IN THIS CHAPTER

• Exploring the Tinkercad Start screen and Dashboard
• Using the Tinkercad View Cube to your advantage
• Seeing how the Tinkercad viewing tools work and how they make your life easier!
• Using the Snap Grid in the Tinkercad Work plane
• Applying some great Tinkercad keyboard shortcuts

In this chapter, you delve deeper into Tinkercad and its user interface. You explore the Start
screen and Tinkercad Dashboard and discover how to use the View Cube to your advantage
when working on your Tinkercad designs. You also find out more about the viewing tools
and Snap Grid and discover some great Tinkercad keyboard shortcuts!

Venturing Away from the Start screen

After you log in to Tinkercad, you see the Start screen.
The Start screen incorporates the Tinkercad Dashboard, but if you’re not sure what to design,
go abstract. Just click Create new design. Tinkercad takes you to a blank design where you
can drop a basic shape into the Work plane and see what you can do with it (see Figure 4-1).
Consider clicking the shape and using the Tinkercad tools to just tinker.
Tinkercad is great for abstract stuff. Sometimes designs will come to you in the strangest of
ways. You’ll be tweaking a basic 3D shape, and suddenly, a design will come in to your head.
Try it. It sometimes works!

FIGURE 4-1: The Tinkercad Work plane with a simple basic shape on the Snap Grid.

Viewing the Tinkercad View Cube

The View Cube in Tinkercad is an essential navigation tool. Because you’re working in three
dimensions (3D), you have to think about length, breadth (width), and depth of any design.
You need to be able to see all sides of your design. The View Cube gives you that ability to
view any side (or face) of your design, any time.
To use View Cube, set up a new design in Tinkercad and drag and drop one of the basic
shapes onto the Snap Grid in the Work plane. Then, start clicking on the views on the
View Cube. Every time you select a design view on the View Cube, the basic shape adopts that
view, and the View Cube displays the same view characteristics (see Figure 4-2). So, if you
select a corner of the View Cube to view from, the design also displays from that same corner
view.

FIGURE 4-2: An isometric corner view of a basic shape on the Snap Grid in the Work plane in Tinkercad.

Using the Viewing Tools

The Tinkercad viewing tools are located on the left side of the Tinkercad screen underneath
the View Cube. They provide you with some great tools for navigating your designs, and when
combined with the View Cube and the mouse navigation, you have a great interface for
working in 3D.
The viewing tools are

• Home view: Allows you to reset your view of your Tinkercad to the default view
you have when you first start your design on the Work plane. It also resets the
View Cube to the Top/Front view. Home view, shown in Figure 4-3, allows you to go
back to square one, and it’s a great sanity check to make sure that your Tinkercad
design is looking good.
• Fit all in view: Zooms you in to your design, up close and personal, filling the
screen with your design (see Figure 4-4). This view is superb for when you need
close-up, detail work on your Tinkercad design. Combined with the mouse zoom
and pan navigation, it provides you with the necessary magnification to see smaller
design details.
• Zoom in/Zoom out: Gives you a default magnification both in and out when you’re
looking at your Tinkercad design. When used one after another, they cancel each
other out. So, if you zoom in using Zoom in and then zoom out using Zoom out,
you’re back to the original magnification. Zoom in and out are great for viewing
designs because they give you a quick, measured zoom with one click.
• Switch to Orthographic view: Switches off perspective view. Tinkercad is a 3D
application. For that reason, all 3D views are set, by default, to show perspective, as
shown in Figure 4-5. Perspective means that all views will have a perspective point
on an artificial horizon, so it will look like faces and straight edges are sloping like
they do in real life, even though they’re straight or perpendicular. If you click on
Switch to Orthographic view, the perspective is switched off, thus giving you dead
straight lines, both in plan and elevation. You can switch this viewing tool either
way. If you switch to the orthographic setting (see Figure 4-6), you can click on the
tool again, and it will switch back to a perspective view. These view settings allow
you to see your design in a real-life perspective (pardon the pun).

FIGURE 4-3: The Home view.

FIGURE 4-4: A basic shape on the Work plane after Fit all in view has been used.

FIGURE 4-5: The perspective view setting.

FIGURE 4-6: An orthographic view. Spot the difference!

Working with the Tinkercad Grid

The Work plane in Tinkercad has a grid you can use for reference when working on your
designs. This Snap Grid is similar to sketching on graph paper with a pencil when you need
datum lines or reference lines to keep things straight or in the same working plane. The Snap
Grid is placed in the Work plane at a zero (0) level and is your datum level when you place
shapes onto the Work plane to work with in your Tinkercad designs.
When you place any Tinkercad shape onto the Work plane, it automatically snaps to the grid.
When you move shapes, they also snap to the grid lines on the Snap Grid for easy positioning
as you design.
You can edit the Snap Grid spacing’s by using the Edit Grid tool and the accuracy drop-down
menu in the bottom-right corner of the Work plane area of the Tinkercad screen (see Figure
4-7).

FIGURE 4-7: A basic shape whose corners on the bottom face of the cube have been snapped to the Snap Grid.

Speeding Things Up by Using Keyboard Shortcuts

You may not be a keyboard person, but some users prefer keystrokes to clicks on a mouse.
Tinkercad caters to all preferences. Fortunately, Tinkercad has numerous standard keyboard
shortcuts.
You can find all the keyboard shortcuts on the Tinkercad blog at
https://blog.tinkercad.com/keyboard-shortcuts. It gives you a comprehensive list of all the standard keyboard shortcuts in Tinkercad, and it even has a short video that explains the shortcuts in a visual style. Figure 4-8 shows the typical keyboard shortcuts (Apple keyboard in parentheses): 

• Work plane: Type W to place a work plane
• Ruler: Type R to place ruler
• Fit view to selection: Type F to fit the view on the selected object
• Copy: CTRL(CMD) + C to copy selected object/objects
• Paste: CTRL(CMD) + V to paste object/objects
• Paste in place: CTRL(CMD) + SHIFT + V to paste object/objects in place
• Undo: CTRL(CMD) + Z to undo
• Redo: CTRL(CMD) + SHIFT + Z to redo
• Group: CTRL(CMD) + G to group objects
• Ungroup: CTRL(CMD) + SHIFT + G to ungroup objects
• Duplicate in place: CTRL(CMD) + D to duplicate selection in the same place
• Lock: CTRL(CMD) + L to lock selection
• Select all: CTRL(CMD) + A to select all objects
• Delete: BACKSPACE to delete object

Credit: Auto desk, Inc.
FIGURE 4-8: Numerous keyboard shortcuts, plus a short video on how to use them.