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.
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?
Nice!
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?
Really nice!
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.
Bug report. In blueprint the selection rectangle does not align with the mouse cursor except at the origin.
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?
Someone built something useful and you complain that it's "nice looking"? Consider reframing your feedback.