Coming from Onshape or SolidWorks to Rig Cad
A feature map from Onshape and SolidWorks to Rig Cad: sketches, patterns, shells, threads, variables and mates, what has no equivalent, and the mental shift.
Article Library
Articles
Repeats and Arrays: Linear, Radial, and Parametric
Linear, Radial, Parametric and Path Repeat: tile profiles in 2D and extrude once, derive pitch from the host, vary copies with instance.i, avoid Mirror traps.
Fillets and Chamfers Without a Fillet Tool
Five ways to round or bevel an edge in Rig Cad: primitive corner radius, extrude edge profiles, SDF blends, Minkowski sums and Surface Offset, measured.
Personalized Prints That Sell
Name tags, photo lamps, photo figurines, desk plates: the four personalized 3D-print families that sell, and what each one has to hold in the model.
Oversize the Cutter: Reliable Booleans in Rig Cad
Use deliberate cutter margins to prevent coincident-face failures, preserve transformed through-cuts, and give smooth SDF subtraction room to resolve cleanly.
Transforms and Reference Frames in Rig Cad
Learn how position, rotation, and scale compose through local, parent, and world reference frames so Rig Cad features remain aligned, movable, and parametric.
Fits, Clearances, and Tolerances for Customized 3D Prints
Turn measured printer behavior into dependable sliding, push, press, and cavity fits across customized 3D-printed product families.
Constructive Solid Geometry in Rig Cad
Learn how primitives, Boolean operations, transforms, and a readable scene tree combine into robust, editable parametric models in Rig Cad.
Parametric Goods: From Customer Choice to Printable Product
How parametric Rig Cad projects turn personalized orders into validated, priced, repeatable 3D-printed products, from listing options to fulfillment.
Rig Cad for OpenSCAD Users
If you already write union, difference, and modules, you already know this editor. The tree is the program.
Rig Cad for Tinkercad Users
If you know group and hole in Tinkercad, you already know the operations. Here is where they live in Rig Cad.
Pattern 3D: Lattices, Infill, and Surface Textures
The Pattern 3D node and its 150+ families, bounding a lattice with an Intersection, scale and precision trade-offs, and the Infill and Surface Pattern steps.
Gyroid TPMS: When Geometry Becomes Structure
From butterfly-wing photonic crystals to compact heat exchangers, the gyroid shows how triply periodic minimal surfaces become tunable engineering structures.
Threads and Snap Fits That Print
The Thread node, calibrated diametral clearance, helix phase proven by an interference check, printable pitch rules, and a strain-based snap-fit readout.
Why Is My Model Slow? Precision, Bounds, Engines
A diagnostic path for slow Rig Cad projects: find the node, match the symptom, learn the cube law behind SDF precision, and pick engine and GPU settings.
Pricing Customized 3D Prints: Costs, Yield, and Margin
Build repeatable prices for customized 3D prints from material, machine time, labor, yield, selling fees, and margin.
Geometry Nodes, Displacement, and the Implicit Tree
If you already think in Geometry Nodes, the Objects tree is the graph. Mesh Boolean is a hard CSG node. The purple diamond turns that same node into a field.
Rig Cad for Fusion 360 Users
If you already use a timeline, Combine, and user parameters, you already know this editor. Here is where those habits live.
Signed Distance Fields: Geometry as a Function
From exact primitives and Boolean composition to sphere tracing and level sets, signed distance fields turn geometry into a queryable scalar function.
Rig Cad Editor Guide: The Five Core Panels
A concise guide to Rig Cad’s Add Object, Objects, Viewport, Properties, and Variables panels—and how selection connects them.
Mesh Cleanup in Rig Cad: Repair, Remesh, Simplify
Choose the right Rig Cad mesh-cleanup step, repair topology defects, rebuild triangle distribution, and cut triangle count without losing required geometry.
Versioned Production: Presets, Reorders, and Change Control
Record project revisions, production profiles, generated files, and inspection results so customized 3D-printed orders remain reproducible.
Beyond Sliders: Safe Parameter Spaces for Printable Products
Sliders define choices; reliable products need relationships between them. Derive dimensions, constrain combinations, handle failures, and test the family.
Post-Processing in Rig Cad: The Ordered Stack
How Rig Cad's ordered post-processing stack modifies solved geometry: Mirror, Cut Plane, Surface Offset, Shell, and the field-only Infill and Surface Pattern.