A roundup of recent Forma 3D Sketch improvements

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As 2025 begins, let's take a brief look back in time at the wide range of improvements we've made to Forma 3D Sketch over the past few months. 💪 

Last summer, we released our biggest update yet: A deeper integration of 3D Sketch tooling in Forma. This brought 3D Sketch from a mere wrapper of the old FormIt Web app into a truly seamless experience which launches instantly and provides consistent visuals with the rest of the Forma ecosystem. 

After that major integration, we tackled some other large initiatives like enabling editing of Rhino models with 3D Sketch and supporting floor plans for 3D Sketch buildings, but we also made tons of great smaller improvements along the way. Let's take a look at some highlights!

Auto-extrude, 3D Shapes

As we did with FormIt, our team takes great pride in listening to your feedback as we strive to make sketching your ideas as intuitive as possible.

After hearing that the old static FormIt primitives weren't quite cutting it for fast and accurate 3D solid creation, we decided to make a change.

First, we enhanced the 2D sketch tools to automatically switch to extrusion once a closed loop is created, since the final intent is likely a solid shape which can be enriched into a proper Forma building:

We then replaced our static primitives with a set of 3D Shapes that will always launch into extrusion after the initial loop is closed, no matter the context:

In fact, these new 3D Shape tools can be used on existing geometry, streamlining the ability to additively and subtractively modify solids:



Clearer graphics when drawing below terrain

We've also drastically improved the clarity and brightness of the in-progress linework when drawing below the terrain in 3D Sketch. This is common when the first point of your sketch starts at a lower elevation than the remaining points. Previously, it was difficult to see exactly what you've drawn and where to close the loop, but no longer:

2D vs. 3D mode when drawing on terrain

Speaking of sketching on terrain, we want to ensure horizontal alignment of surfaces when the likely intent is to extrude them vertically into buildings - especially when drawing on something as undulating as the terrain mesh. 

However, you may wish to sketch something vertically first, and who are we to stand in the way of that?

With this change, you can use Tab while sketching to toggle between 2D and 3D drawing modes - providing horizontal stability when you need it, and flexibility when you want it:

This change also applies to the Move tool, when moving an object placed on the terrain:

Smoother extrusion when hovering over terrain

Moving on to the extrusion tool as it relates to Forma terrain, 3D Sketch now ignores the vertices of the terrain, resulting in a much smoother experience if your cursor is over the terrain during the extrusion process:

But like Forma's main Design mode, 3D Sketch will still snap to geometry on the terrain like buildings, site boundaries, and roads/rail.


Color on generic 3D Sketch models and imports

Moving on from terrain drawing improvements, let's look at something more colorful!

We've enabled the ability to apply color to generic 3D Sketch elements - that is, 3D Sketch designs that don't have floors:

We've also enabled color on imported geometry:

Custom X and Y alignment axes

If you've ever worked on a design that has multiple alignment axes, or on a site that's rotated relative to world north, you probably know how important it is to be able to set custom X and Y axes.

With our deeper integration in the summer, we temporarily removed this ability, but it's back and better than ever! You can find it by right-clicking outside of any active 3D Sketch geometry:

Toggle surroundings visibility

We're including this one because it's incredibly powerful, and it also disappeared briefly (no pun intended) after our deeper integration. 😅 Did you know it's possible to hide everything outside the current editing context in 3D Sketch? 

You can use shortcut H to toggle this, or find the option in the Visibility options as shown above. Critical when drawing smaller details or on the side of a building that would be blocked by its surroundings.

Import editing improvements

Editing a complex OBJ or IFC model is now faster and easier than ever in 3D Sketch! We eliminated performance bottlenecks so the mode opens faster, and also prevented the geometry from merging together, so it's easy to select and edit individual pieces:

Performance improvements

Along the way, we've also been making optimizations under the hood so everything in 3D Sketch should feel a bit snappier. Some areas got magnitudes faster, but on the whole, you can expect about a 2x increase in responsiveness across the board. 

In addition to these, our squad is working to improve Forma generally, outside of the 3D Sketch sub-mode itself. For example, we recently configured all 3D viewing and editing modes in Forma to use the same mouse navigation control scheme for consistency and we also unlocked richer analysis results for 3D Sketch buildings.

We've got plenty more on the way, both inside and outside 3D Sketch. Stay tuned!

Always improving,

The Forma 3D Sketch team