Chisel
View Markdown

Draw Tool

The Chisel workspace tool turns the viewport into a drag-to-place editor. Activate it from the toolbar (T to toggle the toolbar), then click-drag to spawn primitives, click to select, or D for a quick shape picker.

Activation

In the 3D View, open the toolbar and click the Chisel tool icon. The header at the top of the viewport switches to Chisel-specific tool settings.

Chisel tool in toolbar

Mouse controls

ActionEffect
LMB-dragPlace a primitive at the cursor and scale it as you drag
LMB-clickStandard click-select (deselect all others)
Shift + LMB-dragBox-select add
Alt + Shift + LMB-dragBox-select subtract

Keyboard shortcuts

KeyAction
DInline shape + operation picker
Shift + APrimitive submenu without dropping the tool

The D popup combines shape and operation pickers in one panel, so you can swap between Box / Sphere / Cylinder and Add / Difference / Union without leaving the viewport.

D-menu picker

Shift + A opens the standard primitive submenu, scoped to Chisel:

Shift+A menu

Tool settings (top header)

Three settings live at the top of the viewport while the Chisel tool is active. They apply to the next primitive you draw.

  • Shape — what gets drawn on LMB-drag (Sphere / Box / Cylinder / Cone / Torus / Capsule / Prism / Trapezoid)
  • Operation — Add / Difference / Union / Intersect / Slice / Emboss / Engrave. Anything other than Add wires the new shape as a modifier on the active object instead of as a free-standing object.
  • Align — orientation applied at spawn:
    • Normal (default) — surface normal under the cursor
    • World — world axes
    • Local — object-local axes under the cursor
    • Cursor — Blender’s 3D Cursor orientation

Drag clamping

Tiny drags (under 4 pixels) are clamped to a near-zero spawn scale so a stray click doesn’t paste a full-size primitive. To create a default-size primitive, hold the mouse and drag a noticeable distance.

See also