Getting Started

This page takes you from an empty screen to a finished, exported part in about five minutes. No CAD experience needed.

Prefer to be shown? On the start screen, click Make your first part and Whittle walks you through the same steps on screen.

The start screen

Every time Whittle opens you'll see:

• New design, in millimetres or inches.
• Open a file, and your recent files (desktop) or your design library (server).
• Continue where you left off, if Whittle closed with unsaved work.
• Start from a part: gears, nuts, brackets, boxes, knobs… all fully editable. See Parts Library and Templates.
• Templates: complete example designs to learn from.

Your first part: a rounded plate with a hole

1. Start a sketch. Click New design, then press S (or the Sketch button) and click the flat XY plane. The view turns to face it.

2. Draw a rectangle. Press R, click once for the first corner, move the mouse, and click again. To get exact sizes, just start typing while drawing: type 60, press Tab, type 40, press Enter.

3. Add a hole. Press C for circle, click in the middle of the rectangle, and type 10 then Enter for a 10 mm diameter. A shape inside another shape automatically becomes a hole: the shaded area shows what will be solid.

4. Finish the sketch. Press Esc twice (or click Finish sketch).

5. Extrude. Press E. The plate rises into 3D. Type 5 in Distance and press Enter.

6. Round the edges. Press F for fillet, click the four vertical corner edges, set Radius to 5, and press Enter.

7. Save. Press Ctrl+S (Cmd+S on a Mac) and give it a name.

8. Export. Click Export in the toolbar and pick:

You want to…	Choose
3D print it	3MF (or STL)
Send it to another CAD program, a machine shop or CNC	STEP
Laser cut or plot the outline	open the sketch, then Export sketch as SVG / DXF
Share a picture	Save image

Changing your mind is free

Whittle is parametric: it remembers how you built the part, not just the shape. Double-click the sketch in the timeline at the bottom, make the rectangle wider, and the extrude and fillets update by themselves.

Want sizes that drive each other? Open Parameters (the fx button), add width = 60 mm, and type width (or width / 2 + 3) into any field. See Parameters and Formulas.

Tips that save time

• Ctrl+K finds any command by name or by what you want to do: "round edges" finds Fillet, "hollow" finds Shell, "drill" finds Hole.
• Right-click anywhere for a quick-action wheel.
• The hint line at the bottom left always says what to do next.
• Ctrl+Z undoes anything, without limit. Every save also keeps a version you can go back to: Version History.
• Press ? for every keyboard shortcut.

Where to next

• Sketching: every drawing tool, snapping, typed sizes, arranging shapes, importing SVG artwork.
• 3D Features: extrude, revolve, loft, holes, fillet, shell, patterns, combine.
• The Interface: a tour of the screen.