I run a small makerspace for kids and teens in Norway, and we kept hitting the same wall: the 3D tools we tried were either too fiddly for a 9-year-old or locked behind installs and accounts. So I built Akse — a browser-based 3D modeller for beginners, where the path from idea to a printable STL is as short as I could make it.
It's deliberately limited, but with a rather powerfull 2D Blueprint mode where you draw an outline on millimetre paper and extrude it to 3D. You build by placing and combining primitive shapes (box, cylinder, sphere, cone, pyramid, wedge, torus), set any shape to "hole" mode to cut it out of another. Everything is in real millimetres, so what's on screen matches what comes off the printer. Output is a single STL. That's most of it — no parametric constraints, no assemblies, no fillets. For teaching beginners that's intentional, not a gap.
The obvious comparison is Tinkercad — same space (primitive-based, browser, education-oriented), and I'm not claiming Akse is better. The differences are that it's open source, embeddable as a Svelte component, works in Norwegian as well as English, and is even more stripped down. It mostly exists because I wanted something I could shape around how our workshop actually runs, and put in front of Norwegian-speaking kids without an account or install.
Under the hood it's a Svelte 5 component using Three.js for rendering and three-bvh-csg for the boolean operations; storage goes through a small port interface so it's backend-agnostic, and the standalone version just uses localStorage. It's early (v0.1) and has rough edges. I'd really value feedback on where it trips up first-time users, since that's the entire point of the thing.
Source (AGPL-3.0, with a commercial option): github.com/joachimhs/akse3d
Group transform is out of order. It does not transform the group but the elements. This leads to the suspicion that position and rotation are not transformation chains on object trees but attributes. That would be the wrong architecture.
I am very sorry, but please explain. Why is this a nice looking Svelte / Three / CSG app, but the basics are wrong?
I have similar hopes for Solvespace - that every middle school student can pick it up and design things. We have a couple issues that keep me from recommending it too strongly though - bugs in the boolean code are IMHO the biggest blocker for kids.
Any chance you could have the kids make comparisons between the two? Solvespace is completely constraint-based, so it may be a bit harder to learn but also more flexible.
> That's most of it — no parametric constraints, no assemblies, no fillets. For teaching beginners that's intentional, not a gap.
Fillets seems like an omission. For 3d printing, fillets are pretty important for getting good results.
Every other limitation makes sense to me, tho it’d be cool to see parametric constraints eventually, if you could find a way to add them without confusing beginners.
Thanks for making this! I will be recommending it over tinkercad going forward!
Do you have plans to release it for desktop (maybe using Electron)? One of my main complains about tools like Tinkercad is that they are browser-based, and it's easier/faster to have everything local. That's one of the reasons that I moved to OpenSCAD
Clicking "Try Aske for free" takes you straight to it, no sign up! I usually avoid clicking these buttons because they usually take you to a sign up form.
it's a valid idea to try to make an 'easy' modeling/cad system -- the problem is that every such version of software that takes on that challenge makes the suite near useless or incredibly hard to use/clunky for experts. glaring holes, omitted features, zero render or post-process support, poor drawing/print support, etc.
i'm convinced this will always be the case and that the right approach, if there is one, is to take an industrial grade cad/modeling suite and attach a guided 'novice' interface onto it rather than making a novice-based cad system from scratch.
I haven't seen an example of that, either -- but it feels like an easier approach.
Was preparing a rant about CAD solutions being free as long as people didnt get
hooked and then closed behind paywall with ever increasing price.
Then I see that I can self host it. This is interesting novelty.
But there were so many bad apples in CAD area, that I will stick with FreeCAD and after 20 years, if this will evolve and prove it is just not another scam, happily give it a try.
I think this is a free alternative to tinkercad, not to freecad. Tinkercad is a lot of people’s first cad program, so now instead of putting them on a path towards autodesk products, this could put them on a path towards freecad
OT, but from a web design perspective, this site is a good example of a design pattern I really disapprove of: I go to the site, start scrolling down a bit, not reading everything in great detail, but trying to get a feel for it.
But then when I get to the bottom, I feel like what I saw did not really satisfy me - but hey! Look! There's a menu at the top with promising sounding entries!
And then I click on something and instead of getting something new, it just scrolls the page... so, I've already seen everything. That feels like a big disappointment every time.
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[ 3.2 ms ] story [ 39.5 ms ] threadIt's deliberately limited, but with a rather powerfull 2D Blueprint mode where you draw an outline on millimetre paper and extrude it to 3D. You build by placing and combining primitive shapes (box, cylinder, sphere, cone, pyramid, wedge, torus), set any shape to "hole" mode to cut it out of another. Everything is in real millimetres, so what's on screen matches what comes off the printer. Output is a single STL. That's most of it — no parametric constraints, no assemblies, no fillets. For teaching beginners that's intentional, not a gap.
The obvious comparison is Tinkercad — same space (primitive-based, browser, education-oriented), and I'm not claiming Akse is better. The differences are that it's open source, embeddable as a Svelte component, works in Norwegian as well as English, and is even more stripped down. It mostly exists because I wanted something I could shape around how our workshop actually runs, and put in front of Norwegian-speaking kids without an account or install.
Under the hood it's a Svelte 5 component using Three.js for rendering and three-bvh-csg for the boolean operations; storage goes through a small port interface so it's backend-agnostic, and the standalone version just uses localStorage. It's early (v0.1) and has rough edges. I'd really value feedback on where it trips up first-time users, since that's the entire point of the thing.
Source (AGPL-3.0, with a commercial option): github.com/joachimhs/akse3d
I am very sorry, but please explain. Why is this a nice looking Svelte / Three / CSG app, but the basics are wrong?
Any chance you could have the kids make comparisons between the two? Solvespace is completely constraint-based, so it may be a bit harder to learn but also more flexible.
It's a single exe, but there is also an experimental web version: https://solvespace.com/webver.pl
Fillets seems like an omission. For 3d printing, fillets are pretty important for getting good results.
Every other limitation makes sense to me, tho it’d be cool to see parametric constraints eventually, if you could find a way to add them without confusing beginners.
Thanks for making this! I will be recommending it over tinkercad going forward!
Do you have plans to release it for desktop (maybe using Electron)? One of my main complains about tools like Tinkercad is that they are browser-based, and it's easier/faster to have everything local. That's one of the reasons that I moved to OpenSCAD
I use BlockSCAD a lot --- maybe an option for more math-oriented students?
Some quick testing:
I really wish the dimension objects around the editable dimensions were draggable (the "nudges" (up/down spin arrows) are nice).
I couldn't get "Hole" to function as I expected (assumed it would remove itself from all other objects).
No panning of the 3D view?
i'm convinced this will always be the case and that the right approach, if there is one, is to take an industrial grade cad/modeling suite and attach a guided 'novice' interface onto it rather than making a novice-based cad system from scratch.
I haven't seen an example of that, either -- but it feels like an easier approach.
Then I see that I can self host it. This is interesting novelty.
But there were so many bad apples in CAD area, that I will stick with FreeCAD and after 20 years, if this will evolve and prove it is just not another scam, happily give it a try.
Are there “simple” tooling for doing 3D sculpting using quests? Any recommendations?
But then when I get to the bottom, I feel like what I saw did not really satisfy me - but hey! Look! There's a menu at the top with promising sounding entries!
And then I click on something and instead of getting something new, it just scrolls the page... so, I've already seen everything. That feels like a big disappointment every time.
Ideally also ability to drag faces like plasticity.