I am excited to share with you a significant milestone in 3DTin’s life. We just crossed 100,000 user signups. We are honoured that 100k users liked 3DTin and created an account to try it out.
Since its humble beginning 3 years ago, 3DTin has grown into a mass repository of Creative Commons 3D models. It’s a tool that more and more people are using for different purposes. Among our users are many young students who make models in 3DTin and print them on 3D printer. We are glad to play a small role in introducing them to the technological revolution that 3D printing can be.
Our success is not without the help from our star users. Our special thanks go to them. You may know their work from our Facebook page or Twitter feed. Here are some recent examples of how they have pushed 3DTin into building something truly awesome!
Ipercar by icevipergt http://www.3dtin.com/ware
Ipercar by icevipergt
BioShock by Akin http://www.3dtin.com/yznw
BioShock by Akin
A Wrist watch by Vijay http://www.3dtin.com/o8te
Wrist Watch by Vijay
There is more on the horizon. We are working hard on technologies that will make CAD more accessible via the cloud and browser. Stay tuned for updates.
Meanwhile enjoy building!
3DTin 
I’ve tried (and tried) to sign up for the Premium subscription… but can’t find where to apply (?). The Premium features would be much appreciated; they’re the cream on an excellent learning tool. Thanks for putting an enormous amount of effort to get this on the web for free… love it! Happy to pay for a few special features 🙂
Hi Peter,
Once you are logged in as a free user, click on your username link in top right corner. In the dialog that appears, you should see a “Go Premium” button. Click it and you will be able to upgrade your membership to premium. And thanks for your kind words. Appreciated!
Thanks for the prompt response jyro.. I’m signed up to Premium now!
However, for the last 12 hours I’ve been unable to export any stl files (and these are small sketches) …I’m getting constant Gateway timeouts. Is there a problem at the moment?
Cheers……..Peter
Thanks Peter. Sorry for the inconvenience. I’ve fixed the issue regarding export delays. Please try again, it should work for you too.
Hi jyro, sorry to be so much trouble…but trying to Export STL files still produces nothing but Gateway TimeOut errors. Further, when I try to open most of my sketches, the open dialogue progress bar gets to 20%, then freezes. I’ve rebooted, cleared the cache etc.. but nothing helps. (N.b. All other internet sites operating as normal). It looks like a server-side issue at 3Dtin (?)
Thanks for your help……Peter
Hi jyro…further to my previous post: As above, when I try to open MOST of my sketches the loading progress bar freezes at 20%. However, SOME of my sketches can be opened reliably and exported. It doesn’t seem to be related to file size (they can be 40kb or >1Mb), or date of creation (some from yesterday, some last week)…and If I create a new file it will save, load and export successfully.
It’s as if my sketches are spread across different servers… and the “links” in the Open dialog page are pointing at the wrong server for MOST, but not ALL, of my sketches. Cheers…… 🙂
Hi Peter, can you please post the links of your sketches that don’t open for you. I would like to fix it for you.
Hi jyro, where can I find the links that will identify my sketches for you?
NOTE: In the last few hours I’ve tried various “fixes”…reload Firefox, flush DNS cache etc. After some of these actions I can access all my files, but still cannot generate an STL and download – I get Gateway Time-out errors every time.
However, when I log out and log back in a few minutes later, I’m back to having NO access to many files, and normal access to some (!). And, some of the files I can access WILL export/download and others won’t! I suspect my files have been corrupted somewhere, so I’m desperately hoping you can help resolve the issue…there’s many hours of work (even though the designs are very humble!).
Thanks …let me know what “links” you refer to…….Peter
The permalinks to the sketches are shown in the browser URL when the sketch has loaded. Since you are having trouble loading these sketches, you probably won’t see them. Instead can you send me your profile page link? Click on your login name, that will open “Account Profile” window. Click on “View full profile” that should take you to your profile page. Send me that link. Do you see all your sketches on this page?
Hi jyro, many thanks for your patience 🙂
The url to my full profile is:
https://www.3dtin.com/_user/coldchisel78
All sketches are visible on this page (but I can’t open them from there either).
Cheers, appreciate your help……Peter
Hi Peter, I can see that some of your sketches are not loading as you reported. Let me spend some time today to debug this issue. Will let you know.
Many thanks jyro… it’s a weird one! Hope you can resurrect the files and I can download again soon!
Cheers…l greatly appreciate your time and any help you can provide………Peter
Peter, it looks like I can now open your sketches alright now. I think it was some temporary Amazon S3 issue (the Amazon service we use to serve some of our site). Can you try it again? For example this sketch http://www.3dtin.com/kwpe wasn’t opening for me before, but it does now. Let me know.
Hi jyro… thanks mate, the problem is PART fixed!
(a) If I log in as normal and access my sketches via the Open files icon… the problem is EXACTLY the same as before (i.e. it freezes at 20%), and STL downloads don’t work.
(b) However, if I access my sketches by typing in the URL (eg http://www.3dtin.com/kwpe), the file opens successfully; it can be exported/downloaded as an STL….and ALL OTHER files can be opened and downloaded etc (i.e. normal operation!).
So, the issue seems to be a “bug” that appears as soon as I try to access sketches thru the “Open Files” method. The bug is persistent until you directly type in a valid URL address for a file…at which time the system starts behaving correctly… and STAYS operating correctly.
Cheers jyro… this is a wired one indeed! I can work around it at the moment (by clearing the bug, as above), but it (possibly) indicates a more serious underlying issue with the Amazon S3 operations..
Good hunting 🙂 …… Peter
Hi jyro, I’ve carried on testing today and the problems persist:
1) If I try the “Open file, click thumbnail” method…most files won’t open (freeze at 20%)
2) If I type in a URL (…./kwpe) it works 3 out of 5 times, and fixes the bug so I can now use the Open icon and thumbnails to access/download any file.
Mysteriously, if I enter the URLs …./krpe or …./grpe….these do NOT load, NOR fix the bug.
Only …../kwpe fixes the bug (!).
One other detail: most larger files (>1Mb) like …./uwpe will nearly always load without having to fix the bug.
Help! ……best regards ….Peter
Two hours later: Now ……/kwpe won’t load via the URL method so I can’t clear the bug to do any work on any of the smaller sketches.
NOTE: all larger sketches will always load immediately WITHOUThaving to fix the bug…e.g.
…/uwpe / twpe /hrpe / yqpe
Q: Is the S3 Amazon server providing (my copy of) the 3DTIN O/S? If so, could its version be buggy?
Thanks again………..Peter
Hi Peter,
I’ve found the root cause of the problem you are seeing. You have this problem if the URL in your browser starts with “https”. By default all URLs are supposed to be served with “http”, but I’m not sure why in certain cases it’s getting redirected to https automatically. I will debug that problem. But until then you can continue with your work by making sure that the first part of the URL is “http” and not “https” (in Chrome you may sometimes just see http://www.3dtin.com, that means it’s “http”).
Thanks jyro….I was starting to doubt my own sanity for a while! The problem was so random it was driving me nuts….
FYI, in Firefox (Vs. 21) the URL shows as http://www.3dtin.com/….. so no (obvious) indication that it’s https or http. I assume http://www…..that means it’s http.
Thanks again for your continuing efforts…..this has been a saga all round!
Cheers………Peter
As per your post…. when I entered http://www….. the browser made it “http://www…”
The http doesn’t appear in the URL address bar…
Yeah that’s ok. Because http is default, chrome usually hides it. Just make sure things work for you.
Hi jyro, I’ve been typing in the “http” before 3dtin….so far it has worked very reliably! What a relief… Export/download STL files…perfect too! Great stuff….many thanks for persisting with this annoying issue. It’s been very comforting to have such terrific support from you and 3DTin – my compliments to all the team. Cheers and thanks from Down Under………..Peter