When I released ShapeShop B1, I said I was going to try to keep posting monthly beta updates. Clearly, that didn’t happen. But, at long last, ShapeShop B3 is available.

This one took a while because you’re getting a major new feature - I’ve completely re-designed the 3D manipulation widgets and interface. The new system is based on gestures, which can be combined to do 3D rotation / translation / scaling (yes, scaling, at long last!), easy access to world/object coordinate systems, transformation around arbitrary pivots points (with their own frames), snapping, etc - the list goes on. To demonstrate, here is a YouTube video:

Pretty neat, huh? Well, I hope you like it, anyway. If you do like it, or even if you don’t like it, and especially if you completely love it or absolutely hate it (no! never!), please let me know your thoughts at feedback@shapeshop3d.com. If you’re interested in the “science” behind it, you can check out the paper that I will be presenting at Eurographics 2008 in Crete.

Other new stuff in B3:

• As mentioned, support for scaling. Note that scaling is limited to object-space axes of individual primitives
• Flip (again, only object axes for now)
• Bug fixes, including a major bug with file loading that
• Visual & UI enhancements

So, what are you waiting for? Head over the download area!