Educational Software Review

Tabs MST 3D Modeling Software from Aspex Software

By: Pam Turnbull

Working in three dimensions for primary-aged pupils can be expensive and complicated for all concerned. However, Tabs easy 3D modeling software is different. Recently having had a wash and brush up, you can now find it under the names of aspexTabs and aspexTabsMST. But the best part must be that you can dive straight in.

There is a series of very clear object shapes in a toolbar, from a cuboid, cylinder, cone, frustum of a cone, with the tip chopped off, to a regular prism, pyramid, sphere, wedge, frustum of a pyramid, torus, irregular prism, plus rotational shapes and platonic solids of 4, 6, 8, 10 and 12 sides. Choose one, click and drag it into the view area, and the 3D shape appears to the size you want. The 3d shapes also have handles you can click on and use for re-sizing, and they are nice big blobs so this is not fiddly.

You can move the objects around the viewing space, and select different viewpoints from a menu. There is also a re-centre button, which is handy - rather than just flick to the centre, it pans smoothly from its current viewpoint to the centre. There's also a colour palette to change the entire objects colour in one go.

The irregular and rotational tools let you create a closed 2D path and then either extrude it into the third dimension or rotate it. In the first version you could create a section that looks like a set of stairs, and then turn it into solid 3D stairs; for the second you could create half the section of a wine glass and then rotate it to create a whole one.

There is also a "one-click" option which offers pre-created shapes, letting you choose from a set of gears, building parts with arches, columns and several complete house shapes. Having made one object, you can now add as many as you want to it. Using the basic 3D shapes you can build a simple building with a roof, windows and a door, an animal, a train or even re-construct a building from history.

As you'd expect there is an undo and curiously no redo, (from ed, there is a redo, perhaps it was missing in the review version) but I do like the locking option. Also, once proper positioning has been achieved, you can group objects to be like as one.

Both objects and groups can be copied and pasted, so impressive repeated patterns can be built up quickly and easily. There are great links for Years 4 and 5, but the next bit is my favourite.

Once you've created your shape - try out a Roman Villa, you can print out your design as Nets of the shapes, pre-coloured or ready to be decorated by the children. Fold on the lines, apply glue to the tabs and you have a real paper model!

There are some lovely features in Tabs. One is the perspective view, which allows you to turn and rotate the scene in any direction. In fact you can set it up to automatically rotate the object, so you can see all sides. Or you can use the right-hand side of the screen to display 1st and 3rd angle projections, which can also be printed out.

Using this display, you can print with or without colour and you can even add a standard architect label at the bottom to write in what your plan is all about.

aspexTabsMST (MST stands for Maths, Science and Technology) is the enhanced version of the software. Although it is essentially the same program, it does have additional shapes and the ability to put textures on to surfaces, rather than just colours. So your temple columns can actually look like marble or a triangular prism can have chocolate wrapper put on it!

The shape editing is much more advanced too.

It allows the implementation of either shape or world coordinates, the ability to allow grouped objects to be aligned, or taking a text object, converting it to a path and then allowing it to be extruded into a solid object, which can then be printed out and made up.

Certain shapes can have different nets, and with the MST version you can explore this side of things as well.

Some nets (cylinder nets, for example) can have their nets broken down into more fundamental pieces, which can be manipulated separately.

There are also six orthogonal projections to choose from in this version together with the 1st angle and 3rd angle orthographic projection.

Finally, teacher controls are extensive without being intimidating.

There are obvious links to ICT, maths and design technology but Tabs is one of those programs that the more you play with it the more possibilities come to mind.

Ratings:
Fitness for purpose: 5/5
Ease of use: 4/5
Quality: 4/5
Value for money: 5/5