SolidCraft tutorial: your first parametric part
You will build an 80 × 50 × 4 mm mounting plate with rounded corners and holes, then widen it to 100 mm by changing one number. That last step is the point of parametric CAD: the history (the timeline) replays with the new value.
Build the plate in 9 steps
Open SolidCraft and start a design
Open the desktop app or the web app. On the start screen choose New Design (Ctrl+N). Units default to millimetres and degrees; Z is up.
Start page of the SolidCraft desktop app (v0.16.2): New Design, Open… and the bundled samples. Create a sketch on the XY plane
Click Create Sketch and pick the XY plane (or right-click a plane → Create Sketch). The view turns to face the plane and the sketch tools appear.
A new sketch on the XY plane, view facing the plane, Sketch Palette on the right. Draw and dimension a rectangle
Press R (Two-Point Rectangle) and click two corners. Press D (Sketch Dimension), click the bottom edge, type
80, Enter; click a side edge, type50, Enter. Add a Coincident constraint between one corner and the origin. Under-constrained geometry is blue; when it is fully constrained it turns dark and the status shows 0 degrees of freedom.80 × 50 mm rectangle with both dimensions; fully constrained, 0 degrees of freedom. Finish the sketch and extrude
Click Finish Sketch. Press E (Extrude), pick the rectangle profile and set Distance to
4mm. Confirm: “Extrude” appears on the timeline.Extrude dialog with Distance 4 mm and the live preview. Round the corners
Press F (Fillet), click the four short vertical edges and set Radius to
5mm.Fillet, radius 5 mm, on the four vertical corner edges. Add mounting holes
Press H (Hole). With Single placement, click the top face where a hole should go; set Diameter
3.4mm and a Depth of4mm so it goes through the plate. To have holes follow later sketch edits, place them on sketch points with Multiple placement instead.Hole dialog: Ø 3.4 mm, depth 4 mm (through the plate), Single placement. Measure
Press I (Measure) and click two hole edges to check their spacing. The timeline at the bottom now lists every feature in order.
Measure: 64.00 mm centre to centre between two holes; the timeline lists every feature at the bottom. Change it: the parametric part
Double-click the sketch on the timeline, change
80to100, Finish Sketch. Everything after it — extrude, fillets, holes — rebuilds. For values you reuse, add user parameters in Change Parameters and type expressions such aswidth / 2into dimensions.After changing 80 to 100 the plate rebuilt 100 mm wide. In this file the hole positions are expressions (d1 − 8 mm), so the holes moved with the edge. Save and export
Press Ctrl+S. In the web app, Save keeps the design in browser storage; use File › Open → “Download open design” for a
.solidcraftcopy. Export STEP for other CAD tools, or Save As Mesh (STL / 3MF) for printing — see the 3D printing workflow.File menu: Save, Save As…, Save as mesh… and the Export STEP, DXF, OBJ and URDF entries.
Shortcuts used here
| Key | Command |
|---|---|
| L | Line |
| R | Two-Point Rectangle |
| C | Center Diameter Circle |
| D | Sketch Dimension |
| X | Construction |
| T | Trim |
| E | Extrude |
| Q | Press Pull |
| F | Fillet |
| H | Hole |
| M | Move/Copy |
| I | Measure |
| S | Command search |
| F6 | Fit view |
| Esc | Cancel |
| Ctrl+Z / Ctrl+Y | Undo / redo |
Full list: official shortcuts. Lost? Press S and type the command name.
Other ways to start
A · Sample part
Launch the desktop app with --sample, or open the web app with ?sample. Explore the timeline and change a parameter.
B · Bracket script
Run the official example headlessly with the CLI:
solidcraft-cli run examples/bracket.json --out bracket.step
solidcraft-cli eval examples/bracket.json
Source: examples/bracket.json · more in examples.
Next
- Print it: STL / 3MF export and Send to slicer.
- Let an AI agent model it through the MCP server.
- FAQ · honest review of what SolidCraft can and can’t do yet.