Figure 6.51: Tinkercad tinkering screen Export button
Whether Tinkercad is invoked from the Polar Cloud or run separately, you may use Tinkercad’s object “Download” feature, as normal, to download an .stl file12 for one of your objects or an object shared by another, and then subsequently upload that downloaded Tinkercad object .stl file into the Polar Cloud.
Alternatively, Tinkercad supports exporting your own objects directly to the Polar Cloud. A video demonstration may be viewed at Polar 3D’s YouTube channel Sending Objects from Tinkercad to the Polar Cloud.
In the Tinkercad tinkering window13 click “Export”, see Figure 6.51, to bring up a screen at which you may select “3D Print”, which provides the option of using a convenient “POLAR CLOUD” button, see Figure 6.52.
After clicking Tinkercad’s “POLAR CLOUD” button, Tinkercad will ask to confirm that you wish to “Continue to Polar3D”; see Figure 6.53.
Note that your browser will need to allow pop-ups14 from Tinkercad in order to use this Tinkercad export-to-the-Polar-Cloud feature. For instance, Figure 6.54 shows enabling such pop-ups in Chrome. (See Section 15.3 for further discussion of enabling pop-ups in your browser, to allow Tinkercad to export directly to the Polar Cloud.)
When you export an object from Tinkercad directly to the Polar Cloud, the object will be loaded directly onto the Polar Cloud build plate in a new window; see Figure 6.55.
The object will also automatically be placed in your “MY OBJECTS” collection; see Figure 6.56.
Note the Tinkercad logo on the object in Figure 6.56; objects exported from Tinkercad directly to the Polar Cloud will include such a logo, which is a live link back to your Tinkercad dashboard!15
12Or you can download a Tinkercad object as an OBJ file, which the Polar Cloud also supports – but an .stl file is generally preferable.
13At your Tinkercad account dashboard, you may hover over or click on any of your previously created Tinkercad objects to bring up Tinkercad’s “Tinker this” button; click “Tinker this” to go to Tinkercad’s tinkering window with its “Export” button. At the Tinkercad “Gallery” of objects, you may click on another’s object and then if the object licensing permits, it may have a “Duplicate and Tinker” button; click “Duplicate and Tinker” to create your own Tinkercad copy of the object; then similarly “Tinker this” and click “Export”.
14Note that browser warnings of blocking a pop-up tend to be small and subtle: look for possibly a warning in a small information bar up towards the browser address bar, or a pop-up blocked icon in the browser address bar itself, as for instance the tiny screen-with-red-x icon in Figure 6.54. Regardless of whether or not you notice an explicit pop-up blocked warning, if you do not go to the Polar Cloud build plate screen promptly after clicking “Continue to Polar3D, then browser pop-up blocking is most likely the cause.
15Note that the Tinkercad logo link takes you back to your Tinkercad dashboard if you’re still logged in to Tinkercad; if you’re logged off Tinkercad, the logo link will instead take you to the Tinkercad website home page, where you’ll need to log in again to get to your personal Tinkercad dashboard.
