Shapr3D CAD modeling 4+

Just started using this App. It’s running at a perfectly decent speed on my 10 year old iPad. The fact that it has tutorials that actually match and represent what’s on screen and produce the exact output shown on the video (if you follow the steps) is mind boggling in itself (compared to many other tutorials I’ve seen). The 3D object building control features in even the basic tutorial, show how powerful, yet accessible this app is… again, compared to the many 3D packages I’ve seen over many years. Just works! The combination of hand movement, and pen details is super nice and again working with my original Pen 1.0 device… I’m only able to use iOS 16 on this old iPad and it’s all working fine. I could imagine some heavily complex objects/scenes could get slow, but I’m just working through some simple designs, so it seems fine for my use.

I’ve been using Shapr3D for several years now and have been a big advocate of its usability, particularly the way this tool can bridge the gap from a novice to a very experienced CAD designer and intuitively allow each to grow and Improve. However many of the frustrations that were excusable years ago are becoming less acceptable as the subscription cost a has climbed.

A great example is the lack of any way to sort, classify, organise or search for your designs within the app. As someone with many hundreds of designs within Shapr3D I often find myself spending frustrating amounts of time searching through a massive list of designs trying to find what I’m after. It may seem like a small problem but the app has several of these small oversights that begin to add up. Despite promises for almost 4 years on the Shapr3D support forum that simple features like the ability to create a folder are on the way, the developers seem to continually overlook these basic features.

I’m therefore a little torn on my opinion of Shapr3D. It really does has a lot to offer, but after a while you may (like me) begin to ask yourself that if they can’t seem to implement some of the basics - is it going to be the tool for you into the long term.