DNA 3D
Not sure what a button does? Every tool in DNA 3D explained in plain language — what it's for, not just its name.
The Part Design toolset — building solid parts step by step.
| DNA 3D | Also known as | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Sketch | Sketch | The flat 2D drawing you make before turning it into a 3D shape. |
| Pad | Extrude | Turns a flat sketch into a solid by pushing it outward — like squeezing dough through a shape-cutter. |
| Extrude Cut | Cuts a hole or slot through a solid using a sketch as the cutting shape. | |
| Revolution | Revolve | Spins a sketch around a line to make round objects, like a bottle or a wheel. |
| Fillet | Fillet | Rounds off a sharp corner so it's smooth to the touch. |
| Chamfer | Chamfer | Cuts a flat angled edge instead of a sharp corner. |
| Draft | Draft | Tilts a wall slightly so a 3D-printed or moulded part comes out cleanly. |
| Thickness | Shell | Hollows out a solid part, leaving a shell of a chosen wall thickness. |
| Sweep (Additive Pipe) | Sweep | Drags a shape along a path to make things like pipes, handles or wires. |
| Loft | Loft | Smoothly blends between two or more different shapes — like a bottle that starts round and ends square. |
| Body | Component | One complete solid object in your model — double-click it in the tree to keep editing its steps later, instead of starting over. |
| Datum Plane | Construction Plane | An invisible flat surface used as a reference for sketching somewhere other than the main planes. |
| Boolean Fuse / Cut / Common | Combine | Combines, subtracts, or finds the overlap between two solids. |
Extra tools on the Part Design toolbar, beyond the core steps above.
| DNA 3D | Also known as | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Additive / Subtractive Primitive | Primitive Shape | Adds or removes a ready-made shape (box, cylinder, sphere, cone, torus, wedge) as one editable step, instead of sketching it. |
| Mirrored | Mirror | Duplicates a feature as a flipped, mirror-image copy across a plane. |
| Linear Pattern | Rectangular Pattern | Repeats a feature multiple times in a straight line, evenly spaced. |
| Polar Pattern | Circular Pattern | Repeats a feature multiple times in a circle around an axis. |
| Scaled Pattern | — | Repeats a feature at different sizes, growing or shrinking each copy. |
| Multi Transform | — | Combines several pattern or mirror operations into a single step. |
| Create Body | New Component | Starts a new, independent solid object to build features into. |
| Create Datum | Construction Geometry | Adds a reference point, line or plane that isn't part of the solid itself, used to help build other features. |
Quick shapes and simple booleans — faster but less step-by-step editable than Part Design.
| DNA 3D | Also known as | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Primitives (Box, Cylinder, Cone, Sphere, Torus…) | Primitive Shape | Instant basic shapes, placed with one click — quicker than Part Design's version, but not step-by-step editable afterwards. |
| Boolean Union / Cut / Intersection | Combine | Merges, subtracts, or keeps only the overlap between shapes — works on any shape, not just inside a Body. |
| Extrude | Extrude | Turns a flat 2D shape into a solid — Part's simpler, non step-by-step version of Pad. |
| Cross-sections | Section Analysis | Slices a model with a series of parallel planes to inspect what's inside — handy for checking a design before printing. |
| Mirroring | Mirror | Flips a copy of a shape across a plane. |
| Scale | Scale | Resizes a shape, uniformly or by a different amount on each axis. |
| Offset | Offset Face | Grows or shrinks a shape's surface by a set distance. |
| Compound / Explode Compound | Group / Ungroup | Groups several shapes as one object, or splits a group back into separate pieces. |
| Check Geometry | Inspect | Scans a shape for errors that could break 3D printing or exporting. |
| Attachment | Position / Constrain | Pins an object's position to a face, edge or point on another object, so it moves along with it. |
| Simple Copy | Copy | Makes an independent copy of a shape with no link back to the original. |
| Defeaturing / Refine Shape | Delete Face / Clean Up | Removes an unwanted small feature, or cleans up unnecessary extra edges left over from other operations. |
| Color per Face | Face Colours | Paints individual faces of a shape different colours. |
| Measure | Measure | Checks distances, angles and areas directly on the model. |
For working with triangulated (STL-style) models — common with AI-generated and scanned files.
| DNA 3D | Also known as | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Create Mesh from Shape / Shape from Mesh | Convert | Converts between a solid model and a triangle mesh (and back). |
| Mesh Boolean (Union / Cut / Intersection) | Combine | Combines or subtracts mesh (STL-style) models. |
| Evaluate & Repair | Analyze & Fix | Scans a mesh for errors — holes, flipped faces, self-intersections — and can fix them automatically. |
| Fill Holes | Fill Holes | Patches gaps in a mesh so it becomes watertight and ready to print. |
| Harmonize Normals | Fix Normals | Makes sure every triangle faces the correct outward direction. |
| Smoothing | Smooth | Softens a rough or blocky mesh surface. |
| Decimate / Simplify | Reduce | Reduces the number of triangles while keeping the overall shape, for a lighter file. |
| Segmentation | Split by Region | Splits a mesh into separate pieces based on flat regions. |
| Offset | Offset | Grows or shrinks a mesh surface by a set distance. |
| Curvature Info | Curvature Map | Colours a mesh by how curved each area is — useful for spotting print-quality issues. |
| Remove Component | Delete Island | Deletes a disconnected, unwanted piece of a mesh. |
Advanced curved-surface modeling — for organic or free-form shapes.
| DNA 3D | Also known as | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Filling | Patch | Creates a smooth surface patch across a boundary of edges. |
| Sections | Loft (surface) | Builds a surface by blending smoothly through a series of profile curves. |
| GeomFillet Surface | Surface Fillet | Rounds off the corner between two surfaces (not solids). |
| Blend Curve | Blend | Smoothly connects two curves or edges. |
| Extend Surface | Extend | Stretches a surface further out past its current edge. |
| Curve on Mesh | — | Traces a curve using a mesh as a reference. |
| Sketch on Surface | — | Draws a 2D sketch directly onto a curved surface. |
A table of numbers that can drive your model's dimensions.
| DNA 3D | Also known as | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Create Spreadsheet | Table | A table of cells, just like Excel — used to store and calculate numbers for your model. |
| Import / Export CSV | CSV | Reads or saves the spreadsheet's data as a plain CSV file. |
| Alias | Named Cell | Gives a cell a friendly name, so other parts of your model can pull a measurement straight from it — e.g. a box's length set by one spreadsheet cell. |
| Merge / Split Cells | Merge Cells | Combines several table cells into one, or splits them back apart. |
| Text Formatting | Bold / Italic / Colour | Styles spreadsheet text, same as any normal spreadsheet app. |
Structural/stress simulation — an advanced workbench with many specialised icons, grouped here by what they're for rather than listed one-by-one.
| Group | Also known as | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Analysis | New Study | Sets up a new simulation study for a part. |
| Materials | Material Assignment | Assigns real-world material properties (steel, plastic, etc.) so the simulation is physically accurate. |
| Constraints | Loads & Supports | Defines how a part is held in place, and what forces, pressure or temperature it's put under during the simulation. |
| Mesh | FE Mesh | Generates and refines the simulation mesh — a finer mesh gives a more accurate but slower result. |
| Solver & Run | Solve | Picks a solver and calculates the results. |
| Results | Post-Processing | Shows stress, displacement or temperature results as a colour-coded 3D map over the part. |
Flat shapes, annotations and technical drawings.
| DNA 3D | Also known as | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Line / Polyline | Line / Polyline | A straight line, or several straight lines joined together in one go. |
| Rectangle | Rectangle | A 4-sided box shape, drawn corner to corner. |
| Circle / Arc / Ellipse | Circle / Arc / Ellipse | A round shape, a curved segment of one, or an oval — drawn from a centre point and size. |
| Polygon | Polygon | A shape with any number of equal sides — triangle, hexagon, and so on. |
| B-Spline / Bézier Curve | Spline | A smooth freeform curve you shape by dragging control points. |
| Point | Point | Marks a single exact location, used as a reference for other tools. |
| Text | Text | Flat, editable writing you can place anywhere on a drawing. |
| Shape From Text | Text (extruded) | Turns typed text into a real outline you can cut or extrude, using any font. |
| Dimension (Aligned / Horizontal / Vertical) | Dimension | Shows and locks an exact measurement on the drawing. |
| Leader / Label | Leader / Note | An arrow with a text note pointing at part of the drawing. |
| Hatch | Fill Pattern | Fills an area with a repeating pattern — often used to mark a material in technical drawings. |
| Axis / Axis System / Grid | Construction Lines / Grid | Reference lines and dots that help you line things up while drawing. |
| Section Plane / View / Cut | Section View | Slices through a model so you can see, or draw, what's inside. |
| 2D Drawing / New Page / New View | Drawing Sheet | Creates a print-ready technical drawing sheet from your 3D model. |
For designing buildings — a different job from designing parts, so grouped here separately.
| DNA 3D | Also known as | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Site / Building / Level / Space | — | The overall layout of a building project — the plot of land, the building itself, its floors, and its rooms. |
| Wall / Curtain Wall | — | Solid walls, or glass-panelled walls. |
| Column / Beam / Slab | — | Structural supports and floor or ceiling panels. |
| Door / Window | — | Openings that cut automatically into a wall. |
| Roof / Stairs | — | The covering on top of a building, or a staircase generated automatically from a few measurements. |
| Pipe / Connector | — | Plumbing or ducting runs, and their joints. |
| Panel / Frame / Fence / Truss | — | Structural framework pieces used in building design. |
| Custom Rebar | — | Steel reinforcement bars placed inside concrete. |
| Profile | — | A reusable cross-section shape — like a steel beam's outline — for building structural parts. |
| Box / Shape Builder / Facebinder | — | General-purpose building blocks for combining and patching shapes together. |
Not found anywhere else — built specifically for makers and 3D printing.
Quick parametric box, cylinder, plate or tray — just fill in a form, no modeling skill needed. Fully editable afterwards.
Instant personalised 3D-printable items — type a name, get a ready-to-print part with the text embossed in.
Click exactly where a model should be separated (a neck, a shoulder, a wrist) to break a large model into printable pieces with built-in joints to reassemble afterwards.
Stamp honeycomb, diamond, wave or perforated decorative cuts onto any face.
A catalog of ready-made screws, bolts, nuts, washers, brackets and more — drop straight into your design.
Turn a text prompt or a photo into a 3D model, powered by Meshy / Tripo AI.
Each workbench is a themed toolbox — switch between them from the dropdown top-left.