Pinshape & Onshape Partner to Make Sharing 3D Designs Easier
Here at Pinshape, we want designers to be able to sell or share their work as quickly and easily as possible with our awesome 3D printing community.
To help with that goal, we’re really excited to announce that we’ve partnered with Onshape to allow designers and engineers to easily export their 3D models from Onshape’s CAD software directly to Pinshape. This seamless integration makes it much easier for Onshape users to sell and share their designs with our 3D printing community meaning more great designs for you to print!
What is Onshape?
Onshape is a fully cloud based 3D CAD software that allows a design team to simultaneously collaborate together on the same design. Think google docs for 3D design!
The team behind the product is strong and includes engineers and some of the original members of the SolidWorks team. With the newly announced Onshape App Store, designers now have access to a wide range of third party apps to augment the functionality of an already great CAD tool. That’s where Pinshape comes in – the Pinshape 3D Printing Marketplace app!
How does our Partnership Benefit Pinshapers?
- Onshape is free: Creating an account is free and gives you unlimited public and 10 private documents on their platform. If you want more private storage, you can pay a monthly fee for a professional subscription plan. The free plan has all the features of the paid plan! Of course, the Pinshape App is also free.
- Onshape is cloud based: No downloading or saving of files necessary – Onshape’s software is available directly through your browser. It allows you to share or work on a project with multiple people editing the design at the same time. You can also work on separate parts and merge them later.
- Share/Sell Designs Faster: We want to make it as fast and easy as possible for designers to share or sell their design once they’ve created it. With the Pinshape App, users can export their 3D models and create a beautiful design listing on Pinshape, all without leaving the onshape browser. I’ll explain the step by step process below.
- More High Quality Designs on Pinshape: Onshape’s user base includes a lot of very talented engineers and designers. This integration will allow Onshape users to easily upload their designs to Pinshape so that our community can access them. More skilled designers means more awesome designs to print!
How Do I Get Started?
You can create an account with Onshape here and start designing today. The Onshape App store is currently in a Private Beta, so if you’re interested in trying the Pinshape app, you must request to join their private beta.
5 Steps to Use the Pinshape App:
Once you are approved for the Onshape App Store private beta, or once the Onshape App Store is open to the public, here’s how you’ll use the Pinshape app:
Step 1: If you are an Onshape user, go to the Onshape App Store and search Pinshape
Step 2: Subscribe to the app in the App Store
Step 3: Go to the your Onshape project window and click on the + in the left hand corner, click “Add Application” and select “Pinshape 3D Printing Marketplace”. This will create a new tab so you can directly access the Pinshape website.
Step 4: Open the Pinshape 3D Printing Marketplace tab and sign in to your Pinshape account. If you’re a new user, you’ll be able to create a Pinshape account here too.
Step 5: We’ll pull in all the files from the document you were working on, saving you time. Fill out the design listing details and choose which files to export from your onshape document.
That’s it! You’ve just added your design from Onshape directly onto Pinshape.
Once you’ve downloaded the app, you’ll be able to skip steps 1 and 2 and just access Pinshape through your Onshape project every time.
If you have any questions about how the Pinshape app works or how you can get started with Onshape, please let us know!
The Pinshape community is talking about us! Send your testimonials to [email protected].
