CubbyCAD
Sign inOpen editor

Freeform shapes from Bezier curves

3D sketcher

Draw a profile on the ground or on a part's face with the Pen and Rectangle tools, then extrude it, revolve it, or loft between profiles.

The sketcher lets you draw a 2D profile on the ground plane or on the face of an existing part, and turn it into geometry. There is no separate flat canvas, so a profile is always attached to a real plane in the model.

Use it when a primitive won't do: custom outlines, lettering-style cutouts, lathe-turned bodies, tapered or twisted extrusions. You can extrude a profile, revolve it around an axis, or loft a surface across a stack of profiles.

Overview. A sketch profile drawn on the ground plane, ready to extrude.

How to use it

  1. Pick a sketch starter

    From the shapes palette, pick Sketch (Extrude), Sketch (Revolve), or Sketch (Wire).

  2. Drop onto the viewport

    Drag the tile onto the viewport. Drop on empty space to sketch on the ground plane, or drop on a face to sketch on that face. Either way you land in sketch mode.

  3. Choose a drawing tool

    From the left toolbar, use Pen (P) for free contours or Rectangle (R). Select (V) grabs and moves points, and Rotate (E), Scale (Y) and Mirror (X) transform the selection.

  4. Refine points

    With anchors selected, the sketch HUD switches a point between Vertex (sharp corner), Smooth (symmetric handles) and Asymmetric (independent handles). The HUD also toggles Fill / Line and opens the Snap settings.

  5. Finish the sketch

    Press Finish sketch (Enter) to finish, or Discard sketch to throw it away. A Sketch (Extrude) profile becomes a solid pushed out by its depth. A Sketch (Revolve) profile spins into a lathe-turned body.

  6. Re-open a sketch

    Select the part and use Edit sketch (Tab).

  7. Loft several profiles

    Create two or more Sketch (Extrude) profiles and Group them. In the group's Combine section, set Style to Loft and a surface is skinned across the profiles.

A sketch extruded into a solid
In the editor. The Pen tool in sketch mode and the resulting extruded solid.

Tips

  • A sketch always lives on the ground or on a picked face. There is no separate 2D editor.
  • Extrude and Revolve are sketch shapes. Loft is a group combine style instead, so you group several sketch profiles and switch the group to Loft.
  • The Loft option only appears in the Style dropdown when the group qualifies (two or more sketch profiles, no conflicting solids). Otherwise the group falls back to Sharp.
  • Loft has its own controls. Smooth picks a curved or straight skin, Sections / gap and Samples / profile set the resolution, and Closed loop skins the last profile back to the first.
  • Use Sketch (Wire) for a path or curve with no fill. It has its own Select and Pen tools, and you finish it the same way (Finish sketch).

Try it yourself

Open the editor and drop a Sketch (Extrude) tile onto the grid.
Open the editorBrowse guides