Forma3D vs Shapely 3D

Forma3D is a professional 3D mesh editor for iPhone and iPad — built for makers, 3D printing enthusiasts, and anyone who needs to create, fix, or modify 3D models on the go. No laptop. No cloud. Everything runs locally on your device, offline, with desktop-grade mesh editing. ▸ PAINT & MULTI-FILAMENT 3MF EXPORT Paint with a brush directly on your model, then export a 3MF file with per-face color data ready for multi-filament printing. Bambu Studio and Creality Print read the embedded colors automatically — your paint job travels to the slicer intact. ▸ SCULPT MODE Sculpt meshes with a gesture-based brush — push, pull, and smooth with falloff presets and Apple Pencil support. ▸ SKETCH MODE Draw a shape or import an SVG and turn it into 3D geometry in one tap. ▸ LITHOPHANE GENERATOR Turn any photo into a printable lithophane — a depth-mapped relief that comes alive when backlit. ▸ SPLIT WITH JOINTS Split meshes along edge loops into printable parts with built-in joints — cylinder, square peg, cone, or ball. Perfect for models bigger than your build plate. ▸ EDGE LOOP TOOLS Select entire edge loops and fill them with clean topology: Grid Fill for quad surfaces, Bridge for connecting boundaries. ▸ MESH EDITING AT YOUR FINGERTIPS Switch between Object Mode and Edit Mode. Select and edit vertices, edges, and faces with Single, Rectangle, Oval, or Brush selection. Move, rotate, and scale with a transform gizmo or numeric input. ▸ PROFESSIONAL MODELING TOOLS • Extrude — live preview with direction toggle • Inset — adjustable depth • Bevel — custom segments and profile control • Boolean — Union and Subtract (Manifold CSG) • Cut — Line, Circle, Ellipse, Rectangle, Polygon, Freehand • Mirror — across X, Y, or Z • Revolve — lathe geometry from a profile • Subdivide / Simplify — resolution where you need it • Remesh — uniform quad topology with quality control • 3D Text — extruded text objects ▸ PRIMITIVES & FILE FORMATS Cube, Sphere, Soft variants, Cylinder, Torus, Pyramid, Plane, Tube, Bolt, Nut. Import STL, 3MF, OBJ, PLY, DAE, ABC, USD, FBX and GLB — plus native Blender .blend scenes with mirror modifiers and object transforms applied. Export to STL, 3MF (Bambu-ready), OBJ, FBX, GLB or USDZ — with colors. ▸ 3D SCANNING (LiDAR) Scan real objects and edit the mesh immediately — scan, fix, print without switching apps. ▸ PRECISION & MEASUREMENT Ruler in millimeters, 20 mm build-plate grid, snap-to-grid, keyboard numeric input. ▸ VISUALIZATION Orthographic view cube, X-Ray mode, wireframe (triangles/quads), custom lighting and viewport colors. ▸ UNDO / REDO & PROJECTS Full history, native .forma3d projects, objects list panel. ▸ APPLE PENCIL Hover tooltips and precise component editing optimized for Pencil. ▸ 21 LANGUAGES English, Deutsch, Français, 日本語, 简体中文, 繁體中文, Español, Italiano, 한국어, Português, Русский, Українська, Nederlands, Polski, Türkçe, Svenska, العربية, हिन्दी, ไทย, Tiếng Việt, Bahasa Indonesia.

Shapely 3D is a fast, native 3D modeling app built for iPad, iPhone and Mac — sketch, sculpt, and export real 3D models with just your finger or Apple Pencil. Build scenes from simple primitives, then move, rotate, and scale them with an on-screen gizmo. Snap to a configurable grid, measure distances as you work, and use the orientation cube to jump straight to any view. Shapely 3D saves your work as a native document you can open again anytime, right where you left off. Before you print, tap View in Room to see the model on your desk at its actual size, through the camera, or export a USDZ for Quick Look and any USD tool. Apple Pencil Pro's squeeze switches sketch modes mid-drawing and hover shows where the next shape will land. Every project is in Spotlight, Siri and Shortcuts. Widgets keep your recent projects on the Home Screen and Lock Screen, one tap away. Shapely 3D Pro unlocks: • Combine shapes — merge, subtract, and intersect them to build more complex forms • STL export — send your models straight to a 3D printer or another CAD tool • Sketch & Extrude — draw a 2D profile and pull it into a solid • Smoothing — round any object with adjustable, non-destructive subdivision • Cut tool — slice objects apart along a face or a drawn line • Edit Faces — move, extrude, and reshape the individual faces of any object, and give any face a color of its own • Repair — find the holes, stray faces, and inside-out faces a slicer would trip on, see them in red, and fix them before you export • My Objects — save any object you made to the catalog and place it in any later project like a built-in shape; three are free, Pro removes the limit Pro is also ad-free: no ads on the Projects screen. Whether you're prototyping a part, teaching geometry, or just enjoy building things in 3D, Shapely 3D keeps the fundamentals simple and gets out of your way.