Open App

The Ideal CAD Workflow for 3D Printing

…and Why We Finally Decided to Build Our Own CAD App

If you’ve ever tried to design something simple for 3D printing and ended up fighting your CAD software instead, you’re not alone. As a team of makers, engineers, and chronic tinkerers, we kept bouncing between FreeCAD, Shapr3D, Onshape, Fusion 360 (and a bunch of others), hoping one of them would give us the perfect print-first workflow.

Eventually we realized something important:
the CAD workflow we wanted just didn’t exist.
So we decided to build it.

This post explains what we think the ideal 3D-printing workflow should feel like—and why existing tools still make our team grind their teeth sometimes.

What Drives Us Nuts About Today’s CAD Tools

These apps aren’t bad—they’re excellent in many ways. But when you’re designing for 3D printing, they all fall short in similar ways.

FreeCAD

We love the idea of FreeCAD: open-source, flexible, customizable. But in practice:

  • One tiny edit can implode the entire feature tree.
  • Each workbench feels like a different experimental project.
  • Stability can be… unpredictable.
  • Models that look fine often slice as non-manifold nightmares.

We want to love FreeCAD. But every time we try to use it for rapid prototyping, it ends in frustration.

Shapr3D

Shapr3D is gorgeous and surprisingly fun to use—especially on tablets. But:

  • The subscription pricing is steep for hobbyists.
  • Touch-first workflows sometimes make precision editing awkward.
  • Advanced modeling tools hit their limit quickly.

It’s sleek and modern, but not always deep enough for print-heavy, tolerance-sensitive designs.

Onshape

We respect Onshape a lot—it’s a brilliant platform. But:

  • The always-online requirement is tough when inspiration hits offline.
  • Performance varies depending on your connection and model complexity.
  • The free tier requiring public designs is a non-starter for many.
  • The interface still feels like traditional engineering software.

Great for collaboration; not ideal for rapid, iterative tinkering.

Fusion 360

Fusion is extremely capable and widely used. But it’s also:

  • A huge, heavy application that tries to do everything.
  • Slow to start and occasionally sluggish to operate.
  • Prone to confusing licensing changes.
  • Missing strong mesh tools, which are crucial for 3D printing.

Fantastic for large engineering projects—less so for a quick hinge or enclosure.

What We Believe the Ideal 3D-Printing CAD Workflow Should Look Like

After designing hundreds of printable parts, prototypes, and weird test cubes, we’ve identified the workflow we think CAD should support.

1. It should feel effortless to create things.

Sketch, extrude, tweak—done.
No constraint battles. No cryptic warnings. No “over-defined sketch” drama.

Just making stuff.

2. Iteration should be ridiculously fast.

3D printing is basically:

  1. Design
  2. Print
  3. Realize something doesn’t fit
  4. Curse
  5. Reprint

So CAD should let you adjust a tolerance or tweak a feature quickly, without breaking half your timeline.

3. The software should actually understand 3D printing.

We want CAD that proactively checks for:

  • Thin walls
  • Unsupported overhangs
  • Weird self-intersections
  • Non-manifold edges
  • Tolerance issues
  • Orientation weaknesses

These problems shouldn’t wait to ambush you in your slicer.

4. Exporting should just work.

Click export → get a clean, watertight STL or 3MF.
No mesh-fixing. No scaling surprises. No repairing geometry in third-party tools.

Exporting should be the most boring part of the workflow—in a good way.

5. It should connect naturally with the print workflow.

Ideally:

  • Re-export only changed parts
  • Share tolerances and printer profiles
  • Send files straight to your slicer
  • Optional cloud syncing (but not required)

The path from idea → CAD → printer should be smooth and fast.

Why We’re Building a New CAD App

Because after years of using every tool available, we wanted something that didn’t exist yet:
a CAD tool built from the ground up for 3D printing.

Here’s what we’re aiming for:

  • A simple, clean, modern interface
  • Hybrid direct + parametric modeling for flexibility
  • Always-manifold geometry pipeline so exports are automatically slicer-safe
  • Built-in print-awareness (wall thickness checks, tolerance helpers, orientation previews)
  • Fast iteration loops—small edits shouldn’t take minutes
  • Offline-first design because creativity shouldn’t depend on Wi-Fi

We want CAD to feel like a natural extension of the 3D printer itself.

There are plenty of excellent CAD tools out there. But none of them are truly designed for the rapid, experimental, “print it and see what happens” workflow that makers live in.

So we’re building a tool that embraces that world—a CAD app built by people who design, print, tweak, and print again, all day long.

Feel free to contact us in case any questions at hey@bricocad.app.