- You are a former user of Autodesk 123D products. These include 123D Design, 123D Sculpt, 123D Make, and 123D Catch. You would like to know the alternatives to these products. The Autodesk 123D products were discontinued in April, 2017. See Autodesk 123D Apps for a listing of alternatives to Autodesk 123D products.
- Free autodesk 123d download 64 bit. Photo & Graphics tools downloads - 123D Design by Autodesk, Inc. And many more programs are available for instant and free download.
123D Catch for the Masses
Matteo Luccio 2015-10-09 01:40:20
How to Make A 3D Model of Your Sleeping Cat
Stereoscopic imaging, better known as 3D, is not new.
In the 16th century, “binocular” images were viewed cross-eyed. In 1838, Sir Charles Wheatstone invented the stereoscope to give depth to images. It presented two offset 2D images separately to the left and right eye of the viewer, which the brain then combined to give the perception of 3D depth. In 1849, Sir David Brewster invented the first lens-based, handheld stereoscope. The View-Master stereoscope that you might remember from your childhood was patented in 1939. The 1950s saw a boom in 3D movies.
Now, you can not only view 3D models but create them yourself. All you need is a smart phone and Autodesk’s free 123D Catch application. Here’s how.
Choose your subject— such as a toy car, a pile of laundry, or your cat sleeping. Make sure it is not transparent or reflective.
123D Catch sukurto 3D modelio redagavimas su AutoCAD. To embed this Screencast, choose a size. Then copy and paste the embed code into your own web page.
Choose the setting. It is best if you can easily move around your subject 360 degrees, although 180 degrees can work as well.
Adjust your lighting so that you don’t have sharp shadows. Natural light on an overcast day is usually best.
Take 30 to 70 photos, the more the better, all around your subject and from above and below, with a lot of overlap between them.
Submit them via 123D Catch.
Wait. In the cloud, Autodesk will convert the photos into a full-color 3D object in the OBJ file format, texture it, and then convert the textured OBJ file into a streaming 3D model for display on your mobile device.
“This finalizing bit can be somewhat complex, and usually we see folks get hung up here if the project gets really huge,” says Christian Pramuk, Autodesk’s product manager for 123D Catch. Just wait, though.
On a computer, download and install Meshmixer, another free offering in Autodesk’s 123D Catch family of programs. From this program, you can access your 123D Catch projects as well as more than 10,000 models made by other users. You can download any model in one of three export formats: 1) an STL file, which is a typical 3D printing format, 2) a mesh package, which is the color version of it and comes with an OBJ file and a texture, and 3) a photo package, which consists of the original set of photos that you uploaded to create the capture.
“Meshmixer can help clean up models and make them water-tight for 3D printing,” says Pramuk. “The strength of all these 123D Catch applications is that they are connected by a common account. So, for example, with your iPhone, you can capture something while you are out on the town, and then when you get back home you can do some further refinement on your desktop.”
For professional uses, you can open your model in Autodesk Maya 3D animation software or Autodesk 3ds Max 3D modeling, animation, and rendering software.
I asked Pramuk a few questions.
Where does 123D Catch fit with other Autodesk products, such as ReCap 360 and Memento?Pramuk: 123D Catch is a mobile version for consumers to turn 3D photographs into a 3D model. It is a way to bring 3D to the masses. We see this as the next big revolution of sharing. With smart phones, many people share photos and now even videos. It is inevitable that we will get heavy into 3D sharing as well.
Will this explosion of 3D be another huge burden of data on the internet?That’s why we developed this mobile format. The mobile versions that you see on your phone are a lot smaller [than the full models in the cloud], so that they can be downloaded and shown in a few seconds without ruining your data plan.
Do you expect a certain percentage of users to upgrade to a pay version?Perhaps, indirectly. We launched the desktop app first, then released 123D Catch in October 2011, and shortly after came out with the mobile version. We really see that that’s the way to get people into 3D and to get people thinking in 3D. They just have to perform the familiar task of taking photographs, but with a little more attention. With some practice, you can get better at it.
We have other applications, such as 123D Design that may be more suited toward modeling stuff with hard edges and specific tolerances, whereas 123D Catch is really good at capturing, for example, a big pile of laundry or your dog in a funny sleeping position or a rock wall at an ancient historical site, that kind of thing.
How would you compare the capabilities of this free, consumer product with those of your professional products?
Our Memento product is in beta right now. There’s Re- Cap 360, in which you can also create 3D models from photographs. These products are aimed at professionals— maybe someone with a digital SLR camera with a very highend lens or somebody with a UAV who wants to do a digital survey. Technically, under the sheets, we are using the same engine, more or less, to create the models.
The difference is that we are allowing Memento and ReCap to use more photographs. 123D Catch limits you to 70 photos; ReCap goes to 250. You have a lot more data, and it exponentially increases the computational power and the quality of your model. You can also upload photographs at a higher resolution. Some of the digital cameras have 80 megapixels, which is an insane amount of information.
To make an analogy, Memento and ReCap 360 are for museum curators, whereas 123D Catch is for students on a field trip.
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EDIT: Autodesk 123D Design has been discontinued as of March 31st 2017. It is no longer available for download from the official site and already downloaded versions will no longer be supported. However, you are able to download it here (install at your own risk).
Lately we have written a couple of posts about CAD, one intro post about CAD for Makers and one post where we look at the free browser based software called Tinkercad.
After the post about Tinkercad we got a tip about Autodesk 123D Design. This is also a free CAD software under the same Autodesk 123D umbrella as Tinkercad. However, it contains a much larger array of tools and power than Tinkercad, and is actually closer to Fusion 360 (which we talked about in the intro post) than Tinkercad.
Autodesk 123d Make
This is what 123D Design looks like when starting the program.
With the maker movement rapidly advancing throughout the world, CAD software also get more and more available for hobbyists. Over the course of these CAD-related posts we will try to help you get an overview of what’s available and what software is best suited for your needs and skills.
Autodesk 123D Design Comparisons
As mentioned in the intro chapter, 123D Design lays somewhere between Tinkercad and Fusion 360 in terms of complexity, features and power, arguably a bit closer to Fusion. We will try to make some rough comparisons to make your choice easier.
A very quick nonsense-model made in 123D Design using several different tools.
vs Tinkercad
123D Design really steps up from Tinkercad, making it possible to create more complex models. We in NC use Fusion 360 on a daily basis, and when trying out Tinkercad we felt very limited due to the lack of modification tools, among other things. 123D Design reintroduces sketches, fillet, chamfer, extrude, modify as well as numerous other ways to modify the objects, which are all very welcome. You can also delete certain faces (sort of like an “anti-chamfer” or “anti-fillet”), which we personally are huge fans of.
Creating patterns are also included, which are very powerful tools to reapeat features either in a curcular or a rectangular fashion or along a custom path.
The pattern tool used to evenly distribute the seven ellipsoidal cutouts along the edge of the cylinder
We complained about the lack of ortographic view mode in Tinkercad, and luckily this is available in 123D Design. In addition to this, there are several view and camera options available to make your life easier which aren’t present in Tinkercad.
A proper text tool is also included, as a part of the sketch feature, so you don’t have to insert premade letter and number objects.
Another improvement over Tinkercad is the snap tool, which let you select a face of an object and snap it (together with the whole object of course) to another face. The first object will rotate and position itself so it centers on the second face. It has in addition to this snap tool the same align tool as Tinkercad.
123D design also has a proper measure tool, much like what you find in Fusion 360, although not as fleshed out.
The text and measure tools in action. How ’bout some love for the good ol’ Comic Sans? The measure tool shows the shortest length between the two selected edges, the anlge between them and the lengths of the edges themselves.
123d Catch Download
We have to mention the import/export options as well. There are expanded features here compared to Tinkercad with export and import of STEP and SAT-files, which is convenient.
vs Fusion 360
Being more of a simplified Fusion 360 than an improved Tinkercad software, 123D Design can almost get a bit annoying to work with if you’re used to Fusion (or other larger CAD programs, we have to assume). In Tinkercad you’re so blatantly aware of your major limitations that every feature is a godsend, but in 123D Design there are all these smaller and more subtle limitations which you discover after a while which can almost give you a bit of a headache.
Let’s talk about the major differences first. In 123D Design you don’t have the render, sculpt or CAM modules (among several others), which you all find in Fusion. The browser is not present in 123D Design where you in Fusion have a good overview and management over each instance (components, bodies, sketches and so on). This is essential to have if your assembly consists of several components and extremely convenient to have regardless of the assembly size. You also don’t have anything close to the “capture history”/parametric modelling feature in 123D Design which you have in Fusion. All of the movement, joint and animation-related features are left out of 123D Design as well.
A render done in Fusion 360 (from an earlier post)
Fusion 360 has this construct feature which lets you create planes, axes and points in a wide array of ways to make your life easier. 123D make have nothing of the sort. Every sketch-related tool is also so much more robust in Fusion. Fusion’s snap tool is SO MUCH more flexible and 123D Design also lacks a few inspect tools.
We could’ve gone on and on about all the features missing in 123D Design compared to Fusion, but that would get tedious after a while (you probably get the idea by now). Therefore, we feel that it’s time for a conclusion.
Conclusion
So what should you choose?
Autodesk 123d Tutorials
It has come to our attention that Fusion 360 is available for free as well, although with some restrictions to whom is eligible for the free version. With this in mind we will assume that all of these three alternatives are free throughout the recommendations below.
In our opinion, Tinkercad is the best choice if you don’t have any previous CAD experience and at the same time don’t need to create complex models. It’s easily accessible due to it being browser-based and it’s also a great way for kids to learn CAD.
123d Catch App
123D Design is more difficult to recommend, at least if you can get Fusion for free. The tools in Fusion feel so much more fleshed out in every way and Fusion has so much more to offer in general. The only case we’d recommend 123D Design is if you’re relatively new to CAD, maybe just got the grips on Tinkercad and starting to feel a bit limited (we won’t blame you!). Then 123D Design might be a good stepping stone to larger programs such as Fusion 360 as it’s a bit more beginner-friendly.
Other than that, of all the programs we know of, getting Fusion 360 is a no-brainer if you want to start CAD’ing, given that you’re eligible for the free version. It is really powerful, full of features and it gets new features regularly.
Autodesk 123d Design
We hope that this post has given you a better insight in what CAD software you should try out. If there are other good free alternatives you know of, besides Sketchup(which we briefly covered in the intro post), let us know! 🙂