Manual

Step by step from your first model to a print file. With illustrated guides, a tool reference and help with problems.

First steps

Where do I start?

Which guide fits what you want to do, and what to know beforehand.

Every guide shows its steps in pictures of the real interface. A number and a frame mark where you click. Pick the one that fits what you want to do.

From the start to the print

• The window at a glance: Where everything is, in one picture.
• Check and print a model: From the downloaded file to the print file.
• Drill a hole: Drill holes into an existing model and move them later.
• Your first part: From an empty project to the finished plate, with a ready-made part for the screw hole.
• An enclosure with a lid: Hollow out a box, create the matching lid and arrange both on the print bed.
• Split a part that is too large: Split an oversized part into pieces with pins and arrange them on the print bed.

Single tasks

• Move and rotate a part: Drag the handle in the view or type in exact values.
• Change a dimension afterwards: Create dimensions as parameters and change them later in one place.
• Undo or change a step: Undo, or change, switch off or delete a step in the history.
• A thread in a hole: Put a printable internal thread into an existing hole.
• Round or chamfer edges: Make the edges of a part round or bevelled, with a preview before you apply it.
• Label a part: Put raised or engraved text on a face.
• Draw a shape and pull it up: Draw an outline and turn it into a part of your own.
• Print in two colours: Give a face a second filament; the change is passed on to the slicer.
• Repair a model: What Solidon repairs on its own when reading a file, and how you fix the rest.

At the first start Solidon asks for your language, slicer and printer. The printers come from the chosen slicer, each listed once, and the search field above the list finds yours quickly; you choose the nozzle later in the print settings. If your printer is missing, add a custom printer with its actual build volume. Set up later works too. You can change all of it at any time in the settings. Filaments from your slicer become spools of your own in the filament inventory. Four tours on the start screen cover adapting a model, construction, generated models and free sculpting. While the scene is empty, the workspace shows the ways in: box, cylinder, Draw, Parts and, with AI access, Describe in the chat; to open a file, simply drag it in.

Which files Solidon opens: STL, 3MF, OBJ, PLY, OFF, GLB, GLTF, STEP and STP as a model, SVG and DXF as a drawing to extrude. If the file records no unit, as with STL, Solidon asks; almost everything on the web is in millimetres. Solidon reads large files in the background, and the window stays usable. Drag a direct model-file URL from the browser onto the window, or open it through File → Model from the web …. For a model page, Solidon offers the files it finds for selection; download protected files in your browser and open the local file.

The report on the right lists problems with the model. Click a finding to see what you can do about it.

Selecting works in two stages. The first click selects the whole part, the second the face within it; Esc steps back one stage. On the right under Selection you then find the actions that fit. A right-click shows what exists only at that spot: the step it comes from, drawing on the face and hiding the body.

The operation dialog contains the dimensions. The values you usually change are shown first. The rest are under More settings and usually need no changes.

The rest of the manual: Features explains the areas of the program in detail, Troubleshooting helps when something does not work, and Reference covers every technical term and every operation with its values. The search in the manual window also understands your own words, such as “round off”.

What Solidon is

What the program is meant for, and what not.

Solidon builds and changes models for the 3D printer and gets them ready to print.

• Every step stays a number. A hole that sits two millimetres off is moved, not drilled again.
• The clearance of a fit comes from the material. Measure it once, and parts you built earlier improve with it.
• Parts instead of handwork: nut trap, heat-set insert, latch, living hinge, magnet pocket, one click each instead of half an hour.

Sketches are part of it. Basic shapes and your own drawings with constraints are extruded, cut in as pockets, revolved or swept along an arc, and every dimension may be a project parameter.

What it is not: a slicer. Your slicer still computes the print file. No cloud, no account, no telemetry. On its own, Solidon only goes online at start-up to ask for a new version, and it sends nothing but its own version number; you can switch that off in the settings. Without a network, an account or a language model, everything except the chat keeps working.

The window at a glance

Where everything is, in one picture.

Each number in the picture marks one area of the window.

1. Toolbar: new, open, save, insert model, draw, sculpt, armature.
2. Objects: every part, and what Solidon recognises in it.
3. Parameters: named dimensions such as wall thickness or hole spacing.
4. History: every step so far. Double-click one to change it.
5. View: your model. Click to select, drag with the right button to rotate.
6. Tools below the model: Section, Measure, Move and more.
7. Report: what is wrong, usually with a button that fixes it.
8. Selection: dimensions and matching actions for the selected part.
9. Status bar: dimensions, progress and open warnings.

Check and print a model

From the downloaded file to the print file.

1. Drag the file onto the window or click Insert model ….

2. The Report on the right lists what Solidon found in the model.

3. Click a finding to see below it what you can do.

4. When everything is fine, click Hand over to the slicer ….

5. Check the printer and filament at the top.

6. Slice creates the print file. Then Save print file … saves it.

Drill a hole

Drill holes into an existing model and move them later.

1. Click the part. It is now selected.

2. Click once more, right on the face where the hole should go.

3. On the right under Selection: click Drill a bore.

4. Enter the diameter, for example 5 mm.

5. Click Drill a bore.

6. The hole is now in the face.

7. In the wrong place? Double-click the step in the History to open it again.

8. Open More settings, change Position X or Position Y and click Drill a bore.

Your first part

From an empty project to the finished plate, with a ready-made part for the screw hole.

1. On the start screen, click New project.

2. At the top, open Create → Basic shapes → Add a box.

3. Enter the dimensions, for example 60, 30 and 5 mm.

4. Click Add a box.

5. Click the top face twice: first the part is selected, then the face.

6. On the right under Selection: click Parts.

7. Double-click Screw hole with countersink.

8. Choose the screw size, for example M4, and click Insert.

9. The plate is done. Print it as in Check and print a model.

An enclosure with a lid

Hollow out a box, create the matching lid and arrange both on the print bed.

1. Add a box as in Your first part and click it.

2. On the right under Selection: click Hollow out.

3. Enter the wall thickness, about 2 mm, and tick Open the top.

4. Click Hollow out.

5. At the top, open Create → Parts → Create lid.

6. The clearance to the box comes from the material. Click Insert.

7. The lid sits on the box. Click an empty spot next to it.

8. On the right under Selection: click Orient for printing.

9. In the dialog, click Orient for printing.

10. The box and lid lie side by side. Check and print them as described in Check and print a model.

Split a part that is too large

Split an oversized part into pieces with pins and arrange them on the print bed.

1. The Report on the right says that the part sticks out of the build volume. Click that finding.

2. Click Split the model.

3. Solidon splits the part and adds pins so that the pieces fit together.

4. In the Report, click Arrange on the bed.

5. The pieces lie side by side. Check and print them as described in Check and print a model.

The four ways

Adapt, design, generate, sculpt: four ways into the same scene.

Almost every task takes one of four ways. For each, the start screen has an example project with a tour that shows step by step what to try and notices by itself when a step is done.

Way 1: adapt someone else's model. Downloaded, almost fits: import, repair, drill, export. The most common way; Check and print a model and Drill a hole show how it goes.

Way 2: design it yourself. From basic shapes, parts and drawings, with named dimensions such as width and thickness; change a number and the part changes. The beginning is in Your first part, drawing in Draw.

Way 3: generate a model from text or an image. What comes back is a surface, not a design. It goes through the repair, and holes are added afterwards as steps of their own (Generating a model).

Way 4: sculpt a figure. For shapes without dimensions: roughly assembled from basic shapes, blended softly and shaped by hand. Here a gesture counts instead of a number (Sculpt).

Guides

Move and rotate a part

Drag the handle in the view or type in exact values.

1. Click the part. It is now selected.

2. At the bottom, below the view: click Move.

3. Drag one of the arrows in the view to move the part.

4. For precision, use numbers: type the values below and press Enter.

5. To rotate: click Rotate, choose the Axis and enter the Angle.

6. Every move is a step in the History and can be undone.

Change a dimension afterwards

Create dimensions as parameters and change them later in one place.

1. Add a box as in Your first part and leave Create the dimensions as parameters ticked.

2. Click Add a box. The dimensions are now on the left under Parameters.

3. Enter a new value for Width, for example 80 mm, and press Enter.

4. The part changes with it, and so does every step that uses the dimension.

Undo or change a step

Undo, or change, switch off or delete a step in the history.

1. In the Edit menu at the top: Undo reverses the last step, as does Ctrl+Z.

2. Right-click a step in the History to see what you can do with it.

1. Change a parameter: open the step and change its values.
2. Switch off: leave the step out without deleting it.
3. Delete step: asks first; dependent steps are deleted with it.

3. Delete step … asks for confirmation and also removes dependent steps. Ctrl+Z restores them all.

A thread in a hole

Put a printable internal thread into an existing hole.

1. Click the hole twice: first the part is selected, then the hole.

2. At the top, in the File menu, open the Part catalogue ….

3. Double-click Printable thread.

4. Above the fields it says which thread fits this hole. Choose the Size and click Insert.

5. The thread sits in the hole. If the hole is too wide, such as a screw hole of the same size, the report says so.

Round or chamfer edges

Make the edges of a part round or bevelled, with a preview before you apply it.

1. Click the part. It is now selected.

2. On the right under Selection: expand Modify.

3. Click Fillet.

4. Enter the Radius and choose under Edges which ones to round.

5. The preview shows the rounding. Click Fillet.

6. The edges are round. For bevelled edges, do the same with Add a chamfer.

Label a part

Put raised or engraved text on a face.

1. Click the face for the text twice: first the part is selected, then the face.

2. On the right under Selection: click Put text on.

3. Type the Text and choose the Font size.

4. Under Kind, choose raised or engraved. Click Put text on.

5. The text is on the face.

Draw a shape and pull it up

Draw an outline and turn it into a part of your own.

1. In the toolbar at the top: click Draw.

2. Choose the drawing plane. The top view (XY) lies flat like the build plate.

3. Click the Rectangle and drag it out in the view.

4. While dragging, type in the dimensions, for example 50 and 30 mm.

5. Click Pull up.

6. Enter the Height and click Extrude base shape.

7. The part is done. Print it as in Check and print a model.

Print in two colours

Give a face a second filament; the change is passed on to the slicer.

1. Click the face twice: first the part is selected, then the face.

2. On the right under Selection: expand Filament and printing.

3. Choose the filament for this face there.

4. The face has its colour. Print it as in Check and print a model.

Repair a model

What Solidon repairs on its own when reading a file, and how you fix the rest.

1. While reading a file, Solidon repairs whatever it safely can. The Report says what it was.

2. Click the finding and then Show the place.

3. The view shows the repaired spot.

4. Other findings offer their repair as a button, such as Resolve overlaps.

5. The repair is complete. Check the remaining findings. The step is in History.

Features

The window

What the areas of the window can do, beyond what you see.

The window at a glance shows where everything is. This page says what the areas can do.

The project header names the project, the printer and the filaments in use. A click on the printer picks a different one for this project. If the project has several plates, the plate chooser next to it sets the view to one of them.

At the top, the toolbar. Draw swings the view square onto the drawing plane, and the model steps back, translucent. Sculpt and Armature need a selected body and say so before you click. Escape gets you out of every tool.

Below the model, the tool strip: Section, Measure, Move, Analysis, Layers, Exploded and Cut, in that order on Alt+1 to Alt+7. Only Move and Cut change the model, each as a step in the history; the others only look.

On the left are Objects, Parameters, History and Filaments, each section collapsible. Under every body, the object tree lists what the recognition found in it.

The mouse in the view. A left click selects, a left drag pans the view. Press the left button on a selected body and you move the body. A right drag rotates, the held wheel tilts up and down, scrolling zooms towards the pointer. Home (Fit to view) frames the selected body, or the whole scene when nothing is selected.

Flying with the keyboard. W and S go forward and back, A and D sideways, Q and E tilt. While the key is held, the view flies evenly, and unlike the zoom it flies right through the part. The keys work once the view has the focus, that is after one click into it.

Used to something else? Switch. The settings offer four more layouts after Cura, Bambu Studio, Orca and PrusaSlicer, CAD and Blender; there the left button selects again, and the keyboard does not fly. A 3D mouse (SpaceMouse) drives the same camera: push moves the part, twist turns it, pull brings it closer, and a device button fits everything into view. Speed and direction are in the settings once a device has been seen. If it does not respond, see When the 3D mouse does not respond.

Next to it, three tabs: Selection, Report and Chat. While drawing, a tab for the constraints joins them, during the tour one for its steps. F9 hides the whole area; the model then gets the space, and the status bar counts the open findings.

Selection comes to the front as soon as you click something in the view or in the object tree. At the top are the dimensions of what you clicked, below them the matching actions, the most common first: with two bodies Unite, Subtract and Intersection, with one Drill a bore, Hollow out, Split and Rebuild model. All the others follow in groups, and a search field finds each one. With nothing selected, it holds the actions for all bodies, such as Orient for printing. The Parts button opens the catalogue. What the tab shows on a feature is described in What Solidon recognises in a model.

The report does not jump to the front when a new message appears. Its tab counts errors (X) and warnings (!) and flashes for a few seconds, red for an error, yellow for a warning. It stays tinted until you have looked at the report. Identical messages share one line with their count in brackets in front; a click selects all the parts concerned, and an action asks which of them it should apply to.

There is no menu for the selection. The menu bar keeps what works without a selection. Keyboard shortcuts still apply, and the command palette finds every action by its name, with the shortcut beside it.

There are no modes and no workbenches to switch between. There is the scene.

Step by step: The window at a glance

The history

Why every step stays changeable and what holds a transaction together.

Every operation sits in the history and stays changeable there. A model here is the list of steps it came from, not just a mesh of triangles.

A double-click on a step reopens it with the values stored in the file. To move a hole, change the number; only what depends on it is computed again. Ctrl+Z takes this change back too. Drill a hole shows it with an example.

“Edit this step” is also on the feature, in the context menu of the view and in the object tree: the way from the result back to its step, without hunting for the line in the history. Whatever a part created, the object tree groups under that part's name.

Select several steps with Ctrl or Shift. Exactly these go into a part of your own (Your own parts); with no selection, the whole history counts.

Deleting is in the context menu of the list and in the bar below it, and it can be undone. Because a deleted step hits the steps built on it, this is the one place in the history where Solidon asks first; the question names the affected steps and the way back with Ctrl+Z.

Undo takes back a whole transaction, never half a step. A proposal from the chat is exactly one transaction.

Two limits are deliberate. Undone steps are dropped as soon as a new one comes; there are no branches. And a change that alters the number of objects while later steps work with them is refused, because the new bodies are not the old ones.

Clicking sets things up. Select a face and then call an operation, and position and axis are already filled in, the size is not: a countersink takes the screw head, not the diameter of the hole beneath it. On a clicked hole, the dialog names the matching standard size and asks where none fits, instead of inventing one.

Step by step: Undo or change a step

Moving and colouring

Moving, rotating and scaling objects, offsetting faces and assigning filaments.

Two ways change the model itself: Move in the tool strip below the view, and assigning filament on the right under Selection. Every drag and every assignment is a step of its own in the history, with numbers you can change there later, and Ctrl+Z takes each one back on its own.

Move shows a handle in the view: three arrows to move, three rings to rotate and a cube to scale evenly, labelled X, Y, Z and S. What moves is what is selected, the part or a hole in it; then the part stays put (What Solidon recognises in a model). For every handle, the status line says what it will move.

Typing instead of dragging. Three buttons in the bar choose Move, Rotate or Scale, and the numbers stand beside them: X, Y, Z in millimetres, an angle in degrees, a factor in per cent or straight away the target size. Enter applies. During a drag the number is shown above the view; type a digit to take over the drag, Enter sets exactly that value without snapping, Esc discards the drag.

The shadow follows. Lift a part and it runs off to the side; without perspective, that is the only clue to the height.

Moving with the handle never goes over the edge of the bed: Solidon brings the body back to a free spot on the same plate. A typed value, on the other hand, applies as it stands; whether the part is still on the bed afterwards, the report says. If you let go of it over another bed, it ends up on that bed's plate.

Grid snap and angle snap sit behind the button with the grid and are set to zero out of the box, otherwise they would swallow every small drag. When rotating, the angle still clicks in briefly at multiples of 45 degrees, and an arc in the view shows it.

With a face selected, the handle sits on it. A drag offsets the face in its direction, and the neighbouring walls grow with it (Offset face): the 20 mm block becomes a 25 mm block. This works on imported models too and moves only the face you clicked. Rotate and Scale are then greyed out and say why in their tooltip.

For exact sizes, Fit to size sets a target dimension, and the dialog of Scale stretches per axis. Align to feature puts two parts together, face to face or hole to hole. Its target starts out empty, and Apply waits until you have chosen it. The first click in the view chooses it; the list in the Target field offers it too.

Colour comes from the filament. Assign filament takes the whole body, Filament on a face the face you clicked, including a rounded side such as the bowl of a letter. You choose a filament with a name and a colour, from your own inventory or newly created; at the very top is what the body already carries. In a 3MF export this becomes the filament change, and a part without its own filament keeps the colour of its body. Remove filament takes the assignment back for the selected bodies or faces.

The filament inventory opens from the start screen or via Edit. Every spool keeps its own remaining amount, even if two share a name; where the amount is not known, it says Unknown. The quick choice assigns a spool directly, on selected faces only to them. Changes in the inventory do not overwrite saved project colours or print values. A spool can carry up to four colours: the first is the one you see, and all of them reach Bambu Studio, OrcaSlicer and ElegooSlicer.

Step by step: Move and rotate a part · Print in two colours

Material, tolerances, fits

Where the clearance a lid needs comes from, and why it is not guessed.

The piece that sets Solidon apart from a slicer. A printed part is never as large as drawn: plastic shrinks, a 5 mm hole comes out narrower, the bottom layer is squashed wider. If two parts are to fit into each other, that has to be allowed for, and Solidon does it for you.

The clearance lives in the material profile, not in the model. To put a pin into a hole, you do not enter 0.2 but choose a Fit; the number comes from the profile of the material you print with.

That is why a calibration works backwards. A value under Edit → Calibrate material applies to every fit, including those in projects made earlier. It is measured on a printed test piece, as described in Trying instead of guessing: variants and calibration.

The first layer is a special case. It is pressed against the bed and spreads outwards: the elephant foot. For a fit at the bottom of the part, it decides whether it goes in.

The test piece cuts a cube around one spot out of the part instead of rebuilding it: the real shape with the same tolerance, as a small section for a test print.

A scene may have several materials. A TPU seal in a PETG enclosure shrinks differently and wants more clearance. Set material gives a body its own profile, and tolerances, elephant foot and fit check calculate with it.

The parts

Proven connections from the library instead of self-designed geometry.

Setting a hexagon so deep into a wall that an M4 nut fits and the screw still bites is half an hour of work the first time. A part does it: click the face or hole, choose the part, choose the size. Your first part shows the way in pictures.

After inserting, the part stands in the view, on the selected face, in the selected hole or on top of the body, with dimension lines to the edges and a handle. Dragging or a click on another spot moves it, and the dimensions can be typed too. Only Apply inserts it; Escape goes back to the values. With no body selected, Insert stays locked and says why on the button; you can still browse the catalogue.

The dimensions come from a table. Across-flats of the M4 nut, seat of the heat-set insert, width of the living hinge are looked up, not guessed.

Nut trap: the pocket for a hex nut that is dropped in during printing. The most common way to a thread that takes load.

Heat-set insert: the stepped hole for a brass insert that is melted in with a soldering iron. More work, but it can be undone as often as you like.

Latch: a springy arm that gives way when joining and then snaps in. A lid that holds without a screw.

Living hinge: a spot so thin that it bends instead of breaking. The joint is printed along with the part.

Pegboard hook: one to six hooks in the grid of a SKÅDIS pegboard, a back plate on request. In from above through the slots, then pull down; a springy latch tongue holds the part even when someone pulls on it. If you take it off often, switch the tongue off. It is printed lying down, so that the tongue flexes across its layers.

Hinge eye: a lug with a hole. Two of them and a dowel pin make a joint that turns.

Barrel hinge: two lugs around a printed pin, movable straight off the plate. The gap between them is the fit, and Clearance sets it.

Corner gusset: the triangle in an inside corner that holds two walls at a right angle. For a single floppy wall, there is the stiffening rib.

Foot: a printed foot or the pocket for a rubber foot. The chamfer points down so that the elephant foot of the first layer squeezes into nothing.

Cable clip: a bracket whose opening is narrower than the cable. It guides but does not hold against pulling; that is what the cable gland is for.

Printable thread: an internal thread or a threaded stud for a printed counterpart, not for a metal screw. With the Internal thread box ticked, it cuts its own hole in a face. It fits an existing hole when the hole lies between the tap drill hole and the nominal size, see A thread in a hole. A screw hole of the same size is too wide for it.

Add to these the screw hole, magnet pocket, cable gland, rib, keyhole, insert ball bearing, screw, printed nut, T-slot tongue, wall mount, snap fit, dowel pin and bore, snap connector for a seam, tab with hole, pipe clamp, the U-shaped, round, fork and shelf holders and the test bodies from Trying instead of guessing: variants and calibration. The catalogue sorts them into groups, each with a picture.

A part stays changeable like every operation: it is in the history, and the spots where it attaches keep their names.

Two parts that belong together are made together. Set counterparts … under Create → Parts: mark the spot on each of the two parts, choose the pair, enter the dimensions once. Solidon places both halves, enters the fit and puts everything into one step. There are three pairs: dowel pin and bore, printed screw and nut, heat-set insert and clearance hole. If one of the two spots is a thread, there is nothing to choose: the matching counter-thread appears on the other part.

Dividing an organizer. Open Create → Basic shapes → Create organizer, enter the dimensions and choose Arrange compartments …. Keep outer dimensions or Keep clear compartment dimensions decides whether the drawer has to fit or the contents. Select a compartment or a divider in the top view or in the tree, change compartment sizes and wall heights, and the preview follows. Apply layout takes you back to the dialog, Apply creates the part, and in the history the layout can be reopened later. Tray, divider, rim and plug-in foot also exist as separate parts.

Step by step: Your first part · An enclosure with a lid · A thread in a hole

Draw

Drawing with constraints: lines, arcs, dimensions, and what they turn into afterwards.

For the outline no basic shape can give you, such as a base plate with a cut-out for a power supply.

It starts at the top in the toolbar. Draw swings the view square onto the drawing plane, and you draw in the model. What it becomes, you decide at the end. Escape gets you out again.

First the plane. XY lies flat like the print bed, XZ and YZ stand upright, and the flat faces of existing bodies are in the list too. The sentence beside it says how the print layers lie relative to the drawing: parallel on XY, across on the upright planes, and there a horizontal line later becomes a seam. It is quicker with a right-click on a face, in the view or in the object tree: Draw on this face. Under New plane … you create a plane offset in parallel, tilted about an axis or through three points; the distance may be a project parameter, and the plane moves with its face.

Tools and keys: Line L, Rectangle R, Circle C, Arc A, Point P, Curve S, Polygon V, Slot G, Trim T. Polygon, slot, bolt circle and hole grid take two clicks: centre and corner, the centres of the two round ends, centre and first hole, two opposite holes. Number of corners, width, count or hole diameter are next to it in the bar. The line continues as a chain; a curve ends with a double-click, Enter or a click on its last point. 1, 2 and 3 switch between XY, XZ and YZ; Esc cancels an element you have started and switches to selecting. Everything is created as a drawing with constraints and stays dimensionable.

Looking and dragging. You move the view as in the main window, and Fit to view (Home) brings everything into view. With Select, a drag moves a point, and whatever hangs on it follows. Ctrl while clicking collects: Parallel and Perpendicular need two lines, Symmetric two points and an axis, and the order of the clicks counts. Del deletes the selection together with its constraints, in the constraint list only the entry. Ctrl+Z here undoes the last change on the sheet, not the last step in the history.

Snapping. A click near an existing point snaps to it, and both get a Coincident constraint: they stay together even if something else moves later. Where no point is nearby, Snap to grid snaps it to the nearest grid line. Its spacing follows the zoom in steps of 1, 2, 5; a spacing you type in stays, and Automatic makes it follow the zoom again.

Dimensioning while drawing. With line and circle, a dimension field appears at the pointer after the first click: type a length or a diameter, press Enter. The direction comes from the pointer, the number stays as a constraint. Ø or R next to the field swaps diameter for radius, in every circle field of the application. Afterwards, D dimensions two selected points, also with an expression: @breite/2 ties the dimension to a project parameter.

Constraints hold the drawing together. Select something, then press the button or right-click on the spot. These include: distance, radius, diameter, angle, coincident, horizontal, vertical, parallel, perpendicular, tangent, on curve, curvature continuous, equal, midpoint, concentric, symmetric, fixed and a reference dimension that only measures. Whatever does not suit the selection is greyed out, and a second click on the pressed button removes the constraint. On the right they are all in a list; hover over an entry and the points it holds light up. A right-click on a point shows what hangs on it and removes it one by one.

At the bottom it says how firm the drawing is. Fully defined means nothing moves any more. “4 more dimensions and nothing can move” means the sketch can still be shifted; it works all the same. If two dimensions contradict each other, Solidon names them, and the last valid position stays.

Changing without drawing again: Trim cuts away the half you click, Extend lets it grow, Offset (O) puts a contour at a distance beside it, negative inwards, Mirror mirrors the selection about the X or Y axis. Guide line (X) carries constraints but forms no profile, for example as a centre line. Project brings the edges of existing bodies that cut this plane into the drawing, Face outline the edge of the face with its holes. Both arrive fixed and as guide lines: that is how you align to an imported part instead of measuring. It is a copy; if the body changes, it does not follow.

The edge of the build volume is drawn dashed. Draw beyond it and the line says: the sketch extends beyond it. For small parts it lies outside the view.

Finally you say what it becomes. Pull up and Carve are right at the finished contour. Done unfolds all kinds, each with a sentence: pull up, cut in as a pocket, cut a hole pattern, revolve about the vertical axis, sweep along an arc or span between two outlines. What does not work says why. Discard leaves the mode, and the status line names the way back.

The drawing stays a value in the history. A double-click on the step reopens the drawing directly. A moved line recomputes the operation, and the rest of the project stays. A drawn circle becomes a round cylinder, not a polygon.

Using an existing drawing. Drag an SVG or DXF file into the window. Under Extrude a drawing you choose the contours in the list or in the preview, All valid marks every usable one; inner rings stay holes. Set height and width and check the preview. Contours that cannot be used stay visible with a reason. Later, the step in the history reopens Choose contours …, and height and width are then in the operation dialog.

Step by step: Draw a shape and pull it up

Look before you print

What measuring, section, analysis maps and layer preview show before you print.

You can rarely tell by looking whether a model will print: the thinnest wall, the overhang, the island that starts in mid-air. Five tools below the view show it, and none of them changes the model. You cannot break anything with them.

Measure shows the distance between two points; the pointer snaps to corners and edges. While you measure, the view drops its perspective so that you do not aim past the point. A click on a face measures the wall thickness behind it. Every distance stays as a dimension until you remove it, so several can be compared.

Section lays a plane through the model, and the slider pulls it through. The cut face is drawn closed, so a cavity shows as a cavity.

Analysis colours the model by one of seven maps. Wall thickness, Overhang, Support needed and Curvature tell whether it will print. Mesh defects shows open edges, places where more than two faces meet and faces that cut into each other; that is usually the reason when uniting or subtracting fails. Features shows what the recognition found, Fits which faces take part in a fit and which of them is violated. The legend always gives the range of values and where they come from. A click on a warning in the report flies the camera to the spot.

Layers shows the model as it falls apart into layers; with several bodies, pick one first. The slider runs through it, and beside it are the layer number and total, the Z height, the cross-section area, the number of islands and the overhang area. The legend tells contour, island and overhang apart by more than colour. This is Solidon's own layer analysis, not the slicer's computation; the two sets of numbers are kept apart.

Exploded pulls several bodies apart for viewing. Export and history stay untouched.

The shadow tells you something too. It falls for every piece separately, and a part that has fallen apart into several pieces casts several shadows.

What Solidon recognises in a model

What Solidon recognises again in a loaded model, and what a click on it makes possible.

An STL file contains only triangles, no hole and no dimension. Solidon reads the shapes back: after loading, a recognition fits cylinders, cones, spheres, rings and roundings into the faces. Whatever fits becomes a feature with a centre, an axis, a size and an ID that stays. The hole is a hole again.

Thirteen kinds, and the name tells the position:

• Hole: a cylinder that goes in, numbered as “Hole 1”, “Hole 2”.
• Slot: two round ends and two straight flanks, with width and length.
• Pattern: many identical cells on a face, the way Apply texture draws them. A honeycomb holder with 196 cells is one feature with spacing, cell width and depth; Change feature sets them anew, Remove feature fills the cells. A small field that shows only as single features: select them in the object tree and use Combine into a pattern.
• Peg: a cylinder that sticks out.
• Countersink or Taper: a cone, inwards or outwards.
• Socket or Dome: a spherical face.
• Groove or Bead: a ring running around.
• Concave fillet or Fillet: a rounded edge.
• Internal thread or External thread.
• Air pocket: a cavity with no way out. Whether it is intended, say as a pocket for a magnet, only whoever drew the part knows.
• Open edge: a hole in the mesh that wants repairing.
• Face, named after its direction: “Top”, “Front”, “Right side”. A wall facing inwards is called “Top inside”.
• Curved face: a bent piece of surface without a plane of its own, such as the bowl of a D. You can drill on it, place primitives and parts, and assign a separate filament. To draw, choose a flat face or a sketch plane.

Where two names are given, the direction decides: concave fillet inside, fillet outside. In the object tree, the features sit under their body, similar ones grouped together.

Not every shape becomes a feature. Recognition needs sufficiently precise and unambiguous geometry. Its minimum sizes are not general printing limits. On freeform surfaces, it omits spheres, rings, cones and fillets that lack reliable evidence; holes, pegs, faces and threads remain. The report lists omitted round shapes. A complete sphere or ring can still be recognised.

The same shape in a different position. A part you move or rotate in Solidon keeps its features and their IDs. If the same part is imported again in a different position, a shape right at the limit of recognition, such as a very shallow arc or a short piece of a cone, may appear as a feature one time and not the next. The same can happen between computers with different processors.

The Selection tab

Click something, in the view or in the object tree, and you find it on the right under Selection; the click brings that tab to the front. At the top is what is selected, for example “Hole 1”, and below it, for a hole, its size and the standard size: 5.19 mm is the clearance hole for M5. Below are the actions, each a group of fields.

The fields hold the measured values, because a changed number is the operation. To have the hole two millimetres further right, change exactly that number. As soon as typing pauses briefly, the view shows the preview. Apply at the bottom runs the action whose fields you touched last, and the line above it says which one that is. Only then does a step appear in the history.

Rather point than type? Set in the view above Apply gives the hole a handle in the view to move and turn it, knobs to pull and dimension lines to two edges of the face; every dimension can also be typed there. A slot you pull keeps its shape. Apply turns it into a step, Cancel or Escape discards it.

An empty coordinate field means: the hole stays where it is. In Change bore and Pull into a slot, X, Y and Z are set to “as measured”. A number you enter is a new position, zero included; that is how a hole ends up exactly in the middle of the part.

There are six actions, depending on the kind:

• Move feature: the new centre as X, Y, Z.
• Change bore or Change feature: the new diameter, for a hole including the material tolerance; for a slot the width, and the ends grow with it.
• Pull into a slot: length and direction. On a round hole, the length starts at twice its diameter, so the screw has one diameter of travel. A slot can be lengthened or shortened and keeps its direction until you change it. The material tolerance widens the slot, the screw's travel stays as entered.
• Turn feature: axis and angle.
• Duplicate feature: the same hole a second time somewhere else.
• Remove feature: no field, Apply is enough.

Hole and slot can do all six, a peg everything except pulling. A spherical face can be neither turned nor pulled. A cone can do everything except pulling while it stands on its own; above a hole it cannot be moved by itself. A fillet changes its radius or disappears completely, also in an imported model. An air pocket can be moved and removed; removed, it is filled with material. A thread changes its diameter and pitch or is removed completely; it cannot be moved, turned or duplicated. Face, curved face, open edge and ring have none of these actions.

What is not possible is said in a sentence, not shown as a grey field; on a ring, for example, the way via the whole body or a ring used as a tool.

Several features of the same kind on one body give every action a checkbox such as “Apply to all 4 of the same kind”. Four holes in a row are thus drilled out in one step, and one Ctrl+Z takes all four back.

On a face, none of the six actions applies. That is where the parts attach, and the Parts button opens the catalogue.

An edge is the third thing a click can hit. The first click selects the body, the second the edge. On the right you then find Fillet, Add a chamfer and Add bead, each with one dimension. This works on an imported model too; there the rounding is made of straight pieces finer than a nozzle can resolve. For all vertical edges, choose the group in the dialog instead of each edge. Offset face and Apply draft angle also work on the imported mesh.

Two marked features show their distance, centre to centre and per axis in X, Y and Z. It is information, with no button and no step in the history. With three marked, the tab stays as it was.

What else you can do with a feature

Del hits the feature, not the body. With a hole selected, the key takes the hole away; with no feature selected, it deletes the object.

The handle sits on the selected feature. Select a hole and call up Move, and you find it at the hole's opening. A drag on it becomes Move feature or Turn feature, and the part stays put. There is no scaling cube there; a hole grows through its diameter. While you drag, a cylinder shows where it is going; the body only changes when you let go.

When moving, the ID travels along. A fit that points at this hole keeps its reference. A copy made with Duplicate feature gets an ID of its own.

Three warnings can come up: a through hole that no longer goes through after moving; a slot that sticks out over the edge at one end, even if its centre sits in the material; and a countersink above a hole that cannot be moved on its own because it runs into the hole. The message names the way: select the feature in the middle, or fill the hole and create both anew, Countersink being an operation of its own.

What the recognition found is shown by the Features map under Analysis, before you click.

Changing hole and lead-in together. In Change bore, Include countersink, steps and narrowing changes all diameters together, including the opening of a narrowing; lead-in width, countersink angle and step depths stay. Hole diameter only leaves countersink and steps as they are. One Ctrl+Z takes the change back.

Recognising one spot on purpose. If a feature is missing on a large mesh, right-click the surface, choose Detect features here, enlarge the radius until the feature is fully covered and open it from the list with Edit feature …. After the preview, Solidon applies recognition and change together, and one Ctrl+Z takes both back. Apply features only stores just the recognition.

Step by step: Drill a hole · Round or chamfer edges

Parameters and expressions

Named dimensions instead of numbers in the model, with expressions between them.

A project has named parameters such as breite, tiefe or wandstaerke, and operations calculate with them instead of fixed numbers.

What for: a number that stands in seven places gets changed in six and the seventh is overlooked. A parameter stands in one place. Turn breite, and everything that depends on it follows: the hole in the middle stays in the middle, because it says =@breite/2 there and not “35”.

Creating one: on the left under Parameters, click Create parameter, enter name and value.

Getting it into a dimension: once the project has parameters, the fx button next to every number field switches it to an expression. Then the field accepts =@breite/2: = starts an expression, @ refers to a parameter. After @ the field suggests the names, and below it says what is allowed.

Name and label can differ. The list may say Width, the expression @breite. The suggestion list inserts the right one.

Limits, unit and expression are changed with a right-click on the parameter, Change …, undoable like every change. If a typed number is outside the limits, Solidon does not accept it and shows the limit underneath; Change a parameter … leads there.

Allowed are the four basic arithmetic operations, brackets, min, max, abs, round and references to other parameters, for example =@breite/2 - @wand or =max(@breite, 40). Nothing else: Solidon computes expressions itself and executes nothing. A project file travels between people and must not be a program, even if a language model wrote the expression.

Circular references such as a pointing to b and b to a are recognised and named by Solidon, instead of computing forever.

Everything is calculated in millimetres and double precision, rounded only on display: what shows as “40.00 mm” is internally a number with all its digits.

Step by step: Change a dimension afterwards

Printing

From the finished model to the print file, without leaving Solidon.

File → Prepare printing (Ctrl+P) leads from the model to the print file. The slicer computes it, but it is operated from here, usually without you seeing it. Check and print a model shows it step by step.

At the top, the dialog asks in the order in which one thing depends on the other: slicer, printer, nozzle, plate, filaments and quality. You can also change the printer in the project header, for this project only; filaments, colours and their print values stay. You choose the nozzle from the sizes your printer knows; its diameter decides which machine the slicer picks at the handover.

At the front are the values you change on every part: infill density and supports; layer height, walls, temperatures and the search sit under More settings. Every field says in one sentence what it does. What the geometry calls for, the analysis suggests with a reason, for example supports under the measured overhang or a minimum time per layer for a part that tapers to a point. If you choose brim, skirt or raft under Adhesion, only the settings of that bed type appear there. A number outside its limit stays in the field, the limit is shown next to it, and Slice waits until it is right.

Where the values come from: With PrusaSlicer and the Orca family (OrcaSlicer, Bambu Studio, ElegooSlicer, Creality Print, Anycubic Slicer Next), printer, process and filament come from the slicer, and Solidon only adds your changes and accepted suggestions on top; if the Orca family lacks a profile, the status line says which. The quality picks the manufacturer's process, and a choice of your own stays. With Cura, Solidon takes over the printer Cura is currently using if you ask it to, with its nozzle and start and end code. The other print settings on this route are based on Solidon's tables, supplemented by your changes and accepted suggestions.

Slice lets the slicer compute and reads the print file back: print time, material and layers then appear in the dialog and in the report, marked as coming from the G-code and kept apart from Solidon's estimate and a weighed remaining amount. Save print file stores the G-code, with several plates one file per plate.

Open in slicer hands the plate as a file to the slicer's window, for final adjustments there or when a slicer does not accept from outside what its window can do. This route needs no profiles. The Orca family gets several plates in one file, arranged like its own, PrusaSlicer and Cura one file per plate. The route you used last becomes the main button the next time.

If a run fails, the refusal names the reason and offers what helps: another slicer, viewing the slicer's output, checking the machine profile or just exporting. The print file is measured again: if it runs beyond the build volume or is lower than the model, that appears as an error in the report.

After printing, Deduct filament … deducts the consumption from the spools. Solidon estimates and G-code amounts are marked, missing ones stay unknown until you enter them or slice, and a later G-code figure corrects the record. Printed again records one more print. In the filament inventory, the Consumption history of each spool shows every record; Reverse selected entry takes a print back and can redo it. Under Inventory settings you set what happens after a handover to the slicer: Ask first (the default), Never record or Record without asking.

Step by step: Check and print a model

Onto the bed and out

Arrange, check and export your model, and learn what each file format preserves.

Arrange on the bed puts the objects side by side, each on the first plate with room for it; a new plate is added only when none has room. Objects that do not fit are reported, not omitted. If a body consists of loose pieces, lettering for example, the report offers to split it up and lay it out: one click, and the letters lie on the plates.

Too big for the bed? Then it is split; see When the part does not fit the bed.

Steep overhangs may need supports. The angle at which supports become necessary depends on your printer; the overhang fan measures it.

Thin walls need checking. For filament printing, Solidon uses two lines as a guideline. Whether a thinner wall prints and holds depends on the printer, material and load. Around a hole too: if less material remains there than the filament can carry, the report says so, measured on the finished part.

Export goes to STL, 3MF or STEP, plus OBJ and PLY. Slicers prefer 3MF, and it carries the filaments as colour groups; STL knows no colour. STEP keeps faces and edges for other CAD programs.

Before writing, the export shows what the report found, a thin wall for example. Export anyway is the default, because a report is not a lock.

Solidon remembers folder, format and naming scheme per project. If several files are created, the name field of the file dialog holds a pattern with placeholders in curly braces; a name without braces stays a name.

Use GLB to share a viewable model, rather than a print file: colours and name travel along, the part arrives true to scale, and the recipient turns it in the browser.

The slicer writes the print file, operated from here (Printing). Solidon's layer analysis looks for islands, spans, thin spots and the best position; where both give numbers, it says which comes from where.

When the part does not fit the bed

Splitting, pinning and arranging when the build volume is not enough.

If the part is too big for the build volume, it is split, and the halves have to come back together.

The shortest way is the Cut tool in the tool strip (Alt+7). Two clicks on the part draw a line, and it is cut there, straight into the screen. Prepare for plugging together is ticked from the start: pins in one half, matching holes in the other. Next to it you choose what holds them:

• Round prints cleanest but needs two, otherwise the halves twist.
• Hexagon already holds against twisting on its own.
• Dovetail also holds against pulling apart across the seam, because it is narrower at the back than at the front.
• Snap clicks in, with a spring arm in one half and a pocket with a catch in the other. It holds without glue and comes apart again, but needs a seam of at least 5.4 mm; if it is narrower, round pins are used, and the report says why.

Edit → Split automatically … also finds the spot, using the same layer analysis as the search for the best position. What weighs most is that the seam is one contour rather than several thin webs. After that come an even cross-section, which glues more cleanly than a slope, a free thinnest spot, halves of similar size and finally which pieces need fewer supports.

If a part needs several cuts, the search plans the whole sequence, by the number of pieces and glue joints at the end. A mirror-symmetric part is split in its plane of symmetry, and both sides then print with the same settings. Loose pieces are separated at the gap, without seam or pin.

Every cut face gets two dowel pins, so that nothing twists. The diameter comes from the face, the clearance from the calibrated material profile, and every pin is a fit that is checked at every evaluation.

Every cut is an operation of its own: the plane stays a number you can move, and Ctrl+Z takes back one cut, not the whole split. To type the plane, use Split on the right for the selected body, with axis and position; zero pins there means just cutting.

The pieces are named for what they are: “… A · Pins” and “… B · Holes”. When Split automatically makes three or more pieces, it counts them: “… 1 of 3 · Pins”, “… 2 of 3 · Pins and holes”, “… 3 of 3 · Holes”. When exporting, the file name tells you which part you are holding.

Step by step: Split a part that is too large

Lettering

Text on a part or as lettering of its own: which font holds up, and what the nozzle makes of it.

A name on the lid, a size on the drawer, a sign for the workbench. Both ways are in the Create menu: Put text on sets the lettering raised or recessed onto a face of the selected body, Lettering as a body creates it as an object of its own, for gluing on or for two-colour printing. A clicked face fills in position and direction by itself. With On both sides, the same lettering also goes on the opposite side, where the direction leaves the body again, readable from outside, on a flag for example.

Eight fonts travel with the program, so a project looks the same everywhere: a sans-serif, a serif and a monospaced one in two families each, plus a rounded one and a script. The six straight ones come in regular, bold, italic and bold italic, under More settings; the rounded one and the script only in regular. Bold stays legible where the regular weight already smears.

Whether a font holds up is decided by the nozzle. Solidon measures the stroke width of the text against the narrowest line your printer lays and says from which height it holds up. Nothing is locked; a sign that is only for looking at may be small.

The letters appear in the object tree like other features, straight sides as faces, rounded ones as Curved face. Both take a filament of their own: click, then Filament on a face on the right. Lettering keeps its filament even when it is split into letters for the bed.

The text stays changeable. A double-click on the step in the history reopens text, size, font and depth; a typo is corrected, not set anew.

Step by step: Label a part

Surfaces and fills

Patterns as real geometry, lattice infills and hollowed-out bodies.

A knurl for grip, a honeycomb for looks, a lattice instead of solid material: this is real geometry, not a texture in the picture. The slicer gets what you see.

Eight patterns: rib, wave, knurl straight and crossed, honeycomb, dimples, Voronoi and noise. Knurl gives grip, honeycomb and rib are decoration, Voronoi and noise hide the layer lines. The preview in the dialog is drawn from the same outlines that get printed.

Apply texture embosses a pattern raised or recessed onto a face, and on a round part all the way around. The spacing must be wider than two nozzle lines, the depth higher than one layer; Solidon checks both beforehand, because an embossing that is too fine disappears in the print.

Changing a pattern: click the textured spot, then Change texture on the right. Pattern, spacing, depth and rotation are there, and depending on the application also width and height. Apply changes the existing step; if several fit, choose the one you mean first. Ctrl+Z restores the old values.

Fill with lattice replaces the inside of a body with gyroid, honeycomb or cubic lattice. Unlike the slicer's infill, it belongs to the model, travels with the file and can be measured; its wall thickness is checked against the nozzle.

For this, the inner space has to be known. For a body you hollowed out yourself, it is. For an imported hollow part, Solidon temporarily closes the vent's through holes, and whatever is enclosed then counts as the inner space; the message says so. Otherwise the only way is to hollow out the body first.

Trying instead of guessing: variants and calibration

Measuring clearance and the limits of your own printer, and printing several sizes side by side.

The number that decides a fit is the clearance, and it depends on printer, material and nozzle. It is guessed once, then measured.

It is measured on a printed test body. In the part catalogue (File → Part catalogue …, Ctrl+K), under Calibration, you find the Fit test body: pegs and holes with graded clearance, by default four steps from 0.10 to 0.25 mm, changeable in the dialog. Print it once, try the pairs and take the value that fits snugly.

The value belongs in the material profile: Edit → Calibrate material. Every tolerance is a reference to it, so afterwards last week's lid fits better too, without anyone touching it.

The same for walls and overhangs: Wall thickness ladder and Overhang fan measure the thinnest wall that holds and the angle from which this printer needs supports. Until then, the angle from the manufacturer's profile applies, 45 degrees for a generic printer.

If a number depends on the part rather than the material, Edit → Generate variants helps. It runs a project parameter through a range and lays the versions side by side, for example five handle diameters on one plate. The project stays unchanged; the variants are just an output.

Resin instead of filament: resin printers

What is different about a resin printer, and what Solidon leaves out there.

A resin printer exposes layers in a bath of resin; there is no nozzle, no lines and no elephant foot. On first start, two resin printers appear in the same list as the filament printers, a small one like the Mars or Photon Mono and a large one like the Saturn or Photon M. You can create your own with build volume, pixel size and minimum wall.

What is different then: the minimum wall comes from the printer profile, the smallest detail is the pixel. The report says nothing about bridges, brim, filament changes and nozzle temperatures, and the print dialog shows only printer, material, plates and the program.

The way to the printer is the file, because many resin printers only work with their manufacturer's slicer. Open in slicer hands the file to any program, Export stores it. Where Solidon knows the shape exactly, it resolves it as finely as the pixels require, and the report names the size.

Sculpt

Sculpting by hand, and why a whole session stays one step.

Some shapes cannot be dimensioned: a handle that should sit well in the hand, a figure, a grown transition. That is what the brush is for.

Three stages, and the second is easily skipped. First a rough shape from basic shapes, blended softly (Blend together on the right once the bodies are selected). Then Even out the triangles, so that the points are spread evenly everywhere. Then Sculpt. Without the second stage the mesh cannot follow the brush, and the bar says so.

The whole session is one step in the history, not every stroke, because a figure has thousands. During the session Ctrl+Z takes back a stroke, afterwards the whole session.

Six tools. Add and Carve are the same with the opposite sign. Smooth, Inflate and Flatten each need one more pass, and the bar shows how many. Pinch pulls towards the middle of the stroke and makes edges.

Within one stage the order does not matter: two strokes over the same spot add up on the starting surface. With Start afresh, the next stroke builds on what is already there. If a stroke reaches into a hollow that an earlier stroke dug, it starts afresh there by itself and digs deeper.

Symmetry can be changed afterwards, even on a finished session. It mirrors about the centre of the body as it stands before the strokes; it stays put while you sculpt. A stroke on the mirror plane acts once, not twice.

The brush only affects the side facing it. The underside of a thin plate or the inner wall of a hollow body stays where it is.

When not to use it: on a part that is still being dimensioned, because a stroke sits at a spot in space and loses its surface when the shape beneath it changes. For a transition between two bodies, Blend together is better, three numbers instead of a hundred strokes.

In return, the wall thickness is tracked: spots that are too thin appear as a number in the bar before the slicer finds them. If a stroke pierces the wall or leaves less than the minimum wall, the report says so afterwards and shows the spot.

Your own parts

Storing a part you built so that it is ready next time.

The holder for the workbench took an evening. Next time it should be an entry in the catalogue, with an adjustable width, because the next board is thicker.

Project parameters first. Exactly what has a name in the project becomes adjustable. If you wrote the width into the box as a fixed number, you get a part with exactly one width. Create the values as parameters beforehand and tie the dimensions to them (Parameters and expressions).

Then choose in the history what goes along, with Ctrl or Shift; with no selection the whole history counts, which is the common case. In the part catalogue (File → Part catalogue …, Ctrl+K) you find Save selection as a part …. The button stays locked while parameters are missing and says what is missing. At the top, the dialog names the steps it received.

The dialog asks five things: the name in the catalogue, the group, a description, for every parameter whether and how it can be adjusted (label, unit, limits, default and a sentence on what it does), and for every recognised feature whether it can be clicked later, say a hole for aligning. Without at least one exposed dimension and one exposed spot, Create part stays locked.

Creating it computes: the part is built once at every corner of the given range, smallest width with greatest height and so on. If even one corner yields no usable body, the catalogue entry says so before you use it.

It stays on this computer and is marked next to the supplied parts; nothing is uploaded. If you pass on a project that uses it, it travels along as a recipe, a list of steps and values, not a program. If the recipient already has a part of that name, theirs wins, and the one that came along gets its own.

Changing means saving again under the same name; the button is then called Replace part. If the project is gone or the part came as a file, Open for editing … brings its steps back into the history together with what you entered. An imported part stays marked as imported.

Every recipe has a version that follows from its content. If a project uses an older one, Solidon says so on opening; the old version travels in the project, appears as an entry of its own in the catalogue, and you decide which applies.

Exchange part files

Passing on a part of your own and taking one from someone else, through a file rather than an account.

Parts are shared as files, using whichever transfer method you choose. Solidon has no public library, uploads nothing and needs neither an account nor a network. The file ends in .solidon-part and carries the Solidon icon.

Sharing a part: in the part catalogue (File → Part catalogue …, Ctrl+K), select a part of your own and press Share part as a file …. The file carries author and licence. Supplied and imported parts keep their origin; saving again does not make someone else's work yours.

The licence is spelled out: Public domain — anyone may do anything, no conditions, Attribution — my name must be credited or Attribution, and adaptations under the same licence. The third one requires others to pass on their improvement in the same way. The name next to it is freely chosen; initials are enough.

The file carries data, never executable source code: the recipe of steps and values and, where needed, embedded model data. Solidon checks size, structure and integrity both when sharing and when importing.

Importing a part: in the catalogue, choose Add part from a file …. If validation succeeds, the part appears in the catalogue and works like any other. If it fails, Solidon identifies the missing field, invalid value or unknown operation. If it has the same name as one of your own, yours stays and the new one gets a derived name.

An imported part stays in the catalogue, its origin visible. With CC BY, every shared copy names the original author; with CC BY-SA, a derived version must also be released under the same licence.

Everything stays offline. Neither the file nor its author, licence or origin is sent to RS Digital.

Generating a model

A mesh from text or an image, and what it then takes to make it printable.

You describe a part or supply an image, and a generator turns it into a mesh: File → Generate model.

It is computed in a local ComfyUI on port 8188; if none is running, the entry stays greyed out and says why. Setting it up is described in Setting up optional programs.

What comes back is a surface, not a design, without holes and fits and often not closed. Holes and fits are made afterwards as steps of their own.

The supplied workflow relies on TripoSG, source code and model card under the MIT licence. The full licence chain of the weights and embedded models is still being reviewed. Other models have their own terms, which must be checked for the version in use.

The result sits in the project like a file you dragged in, because the same request gives something different after a model change. Ordinary steps such as Repair follow on top of it. Request and seed are kept with it; the same seed gives the same result as far as the model allows.

The repair chain runs without asking: closing holes, merging duplicate points, making the outsides consistent. Loading, size, repair and placing form one step: a single Ctrl+Z takes back the whole generated model, and in the history each part stays changeable on its own.

The chat

How to talk to the chat, what it sees and what becomes of a proposal.

The chat calls the same operations as the window. It chooses operations and values; the program does the computing.

How it goes: you write what you want and get a proposal, a list of operations not yet carried out. The view shows in blue what would be added and in orange what would disappear. Apply enters it into the history as one transaction, one Ctrl+Z takes it back completely, and Discard leaves nothing behind.

It sees a digest: dimensions, recognised features, project parameters, selection and report. After a Ctrl+Z its contribution counts as discarded.

It needs a language model, either a key of your own (Edit → Set up the chat, stored in the system keychain, never in the project file) or a local Ollama (Setting up optional programs). Without a model only the chat is greyed out, and it says why.

Setting up optional programs

The three programs Solidon can use: what each brings and what is left to do after installing.

None of them is required. Importing, changing, checking and exporting all work without the three.

The list is under Help → Optional programs, each row with purpose, state and location. Where Solidon can install something itself, there is a button, and only its click installs: on Windows via winget, on macOS via Homebrew, on Linux via Flatpak in your user account. Whether additional permissions are needed depends on the package and installation method. Otherwise the command to copy and the manufacturer's page are shown. For a program in an unusual place, such as a portable copy on a second drive, there is Set location …, and that setting applies from then on.

The slicer

For the print file and the cross-check from the G-code. PrusaSlicer, SuperSlicer, OrcaSlicer, ElegooSlicer, Bambu Studio, Creality Print, Anycubic Slicer Next and Cura are recognised. On first start, Solidon suggests the printer the slicer last used.

Ollama for the chat without a key of your own

Ollama comes without a model and is not necessarily running. Edit → Set up the chat takes care of both:

1. Is it running? The dialog says so, and a button starts it. If it runs on another computer, its address belongs in the list of optional programs.
2. Fetch a model. The choice lists the installed ones and the proven ones. Fetch the model downloads seven to nineteen gigabytes; an interrupted download resumes later.
3. Check tools. Only a test with a real request shows whether a model actually calls tools. If the chat answers but carries nothing out, a different model helps.

The test also measures the speed and says how long it takes until an answer starts. Without a graphics card, Ollama computes on the processor, orders of magnitude slower; if the wait shown is minutes, the local route is not worth it on this computer. After ten minutes Solidon cancels a local request.

A model that fits entirely into graphics memory usually responds faster. Parameter count alone does not establish reliable tool calls; run the tool test for your model. Models that have performed well are listed in Which models Solidon uses. For long exchanges, a key for a hosted model is worth it. Ollama itself supports AMD cards via ROCm; IPEX-LLM and OpenVINO are separate installations that Solidon does not set up; the tool test shows whether such a route holds up.

ComfyUI for generating from text or an image

ComfyUI needs the nodes the workflow addresses and the model for them. Solidon puts both in place, via Set up nodes and model … in the ComfyUI row or straight from File → Generate model when ComfyUI is running there without the nodes. Solidon finds the desktop version from comfy.org by itself; for the portable one, point it at the folder with custom_nodes and main.py if needed.

The setup fetches the pinned TripoSG source code, installs missing packages and checks that ComfyUI can load the nodes. On request, the model follows with about 7.5 GB and, for the route from text, the image model with about 6.9 GB. An interrupted run resumes where it stopped. Then restart ComfyUI once, otherwise Generate model stays greyed out. During a generation Solidon shows the elapsed time; if something breaks off, ComfyUI's message is shown in the dialog.

Remote control

Another program operates Solidon, locally, with an off switch, and every step can be undone.

Another program on the same computer may operate Solidon, an AI assistant such as Claude Code for example; the connection is called MCP.

It is off until you switch it on, in the settings, together with the port. Solidon then listens only on 127.0.0.1 and cannot be reached from any other computer. In the other program, http://127.0.0.1:8787/mcp is entered as the server.

What comes in is a transaction like any other: the history shows it with a note that it came from outside, and Ctrl+Z takes it back. Nothing that looks like a file path gets through, because an outside program should not decide what is read here.

Activation

Licence key, device activation and activation without internet.

This version is a complete demo with a time limit. Up to and including 30 October 2026, Solidon is fully unlocked without a licence key, and the status line counts the days. After that, this demo no longer starts; your projects are kept.

The later retail version has no trial period for now. Without activation, you can still open, view and measure models. Activation is required to change models, export, send them to a slicer or use the chat.

You enter a key, you do not create an account: Help → Unlock Solidon …. Then this computer is activated once, with Activate online or via a second device, and stays usable without regular checks. Device key, purchase code and certificate are kept in the system and in the settings folder, never in a project file.

Without internet in three steps: open Activate offline … and save the request, redeem the file on a device with internet at solidon3d.de/offline-aktivierung.html, import the response into Solidon. It is valid only for the computer that created the request.

How many computers? One with a private licence, two with a business licence. Help → About Solidon shows your licence type.

When changing computers, first: deactivate this computer. This frees the device slot and removes the activation and purchase code. If the old computer is lost or broken, support resets the device slot using the order number.

Troubleshooting

When something goes wrong

The most common cases at the start, with what is behind them.

The file will not open. Solidon says what is wrong with it: empty, cut off, not an STL or 3MF despite the extension, zero triangles or no extent. Usually the download broke off, or a server's error page arrived instead of the model; with zero triangles, nothing was selected when exporting. Choose another file leads straight to the file selection.

The model has openings. Solidon repairs what it safely can while importing, and the report says so, for example “One hole was closed.” A large opening gets a new surface, with Show the place and Leave open below it. If something stays open, it says for example “One open place could not be closed safely.”, and Show the places leads there. If a whole wall is missing, another source is the shorter way.

Combining or subtracting fails or removes too much. Both need clean bodies. Solidon tries several methods and says which one worked; if it had to compute on a grid, precision was lost. Then repair first and try again. If the report says “Parts of the model overlap.”, the button Resolve overlaps helps. If two faces lie exactly on top of each other, let the body to be subtracted stick out by a hundredth of a millimetre; parts do that by themselves.

The part does not fit the bed. Split automatically cuts it into pieces that fit (When the part does not fit the bed). Check the build volume in the printer profile too.

The fit is too tight or too loose. Do not change the model; measure and enter the value under Calibrate material (Trying instead of guessing: variants and calibration).

A step can no longer be changed. If the change would alter the number of objects that later steps work with, the evaluation stops. Undo the later steps, make the change and build them again.

STEP is greyed out. STEP needs individually editable faces and edges. For a triangle mesh, choose Convert to faces and edges. Then check the shape and the report: conversion does not automatically restore the original CAD construction. You can also switch an existing basic-shape step to Compute with true faces and edges through its context menu in the history. Fillet and chamfer also work on meshes.

The actions on the right are locked. If the chain stops at a step, for example because a part fits no bed, Solidon accepts no new step after it, because it would never be computed. Each button explains why it is unavailable, and the report offers the next step.

The chat does not answer. It needs a key of your own or a local Ollama (The chat).

Everything is sluggish. While you work, Solidon uses draft quality; it computes the final detail for export. With very detailed models, simplifying early helps; the triangle count is in the object tree. On opening, a loading indicator shows that the project is still loading.

A grey button says why it is grey, as a tooltip, in the status line and for the screen reader. Without a reason, it is a bug in Solidon.

Every error message should offer a next step. If no action to continue is offered, that is a bug in Solidon and worth a report: Help → Send feedback. The preview shows what will be included: a screenshot, the log and, if you choose, the session. If you do not want to hand anything over, save a folder on your own computer instead.

During the demo, Solidon asks for feedback. After 15 minutes of work with a new version, counted only while you are doing something, a card appears over the view and asks how it is going. Give feedback opens the same dialog as Help → Send feedback, with three optional fields: how well you are getting on, what worked, what was missing. Nothing leaves without your click. The card comes once per version; No thanks and a sent answer apply until the next version.

Step by step: Repair a model

When the 3D mouse does not respond

Solidon needs access to a detected device; this explains how to grant it.

Linux (USB or USB receiver, with systemd-logind)

A detected device may still be blocked for your user account. With Copy instructions in the 3D mouse help, you receive the commands for the detected vendor and product IDs. Review them before running them in a terminal. Creating the udev rule requires administrator rights once; Solidon itself runs as a regular user. The rule grants access only to the active, locally logged-in user. Unplug the device and plug it back in afterwards; Solidon keeps searching automatically.

The rule applies to USB, including USB receivers. For Bluetooth, connect via USB first and copy the instructions for that device. Without systemd-logind, ask your system administrator to configure user-specific device access. First close other applications that have opened the device exclusively.

macOS

Install or update 3DxWare from 3Dconnexion and enable its driver extension. From macOS 15: open “System Settings › General › Login Items & Extensions › Driver Extensions” and enable “3DconnexionHelper”. Up to macOS 14: allow the blocked system software from “3DconnexionHelper” under “Privacy & Security”. Follow any further instructions from the driver installer and restart Solidon afterwards. The manufacturer's instructions are at 3dconnexion.com under Support, titled “Enabling 3Dconnexion Extension After Installing the Driver”.

Windows and other systems

Unplug the device and plug it back in. Close other applications that may be using it exclusively, and check the connection and the device and driver instructions from 3Dconnexion. Solidon keeps searching automatically.

Reference

Glossary

The terms that appear in menus and messages, briefly explained.

The words that turn up in Solidon, in slicers and in printing forums — briefly explained.

Mesh — a body as a shell of triangles. STL and OBJ contain nothing else: no circles, no dimensions, only triangles.

Closed (watertight) — the shell has no hole, inside and outside are unambiguous. Only a closed body can be combined and printed reliably.

Feature — a place in the mesh where Solidon has recognised a known shape: a hole, a peg, a rounding, a face. Ten thousand triangles turn back into something you can click on and change.

Operation — one working step: drilling, filleting, splitting, placing a part. In Solidon, geometry comes about this way and no other.

Transaction — everything one undo takes back at once. A proposal from the chat is exactly one, even when it consists of five operations.

Parameter — a named dimension of the project, width for instance. Operations may compute with it; when the value changes, everything hanging on it changes.

Part — a ready-made construction element from the library, with dimensions from a table rather than from memory.

Sketch (drawing) — a flat outline of lines, circles and arcs. A body is made from it, and it stays editable afterwards: moving a line means changing the part.

Constraint — a rule that holds the drawing together: two lines parallel, a distance fixed, one point on another. When something is dragged, they keep holding.

Degree of freedom — what can still move in a drawing. “4 more dimensions and nothing can move” means: four things are not yet settled. At zero the drawing is fully defined.

Fully defined — every number of the drawing is given, nothing shifts any more. Not fully defined does not mean wrong: the drawing works, it can just still be moved.

Extrude (pull up) — raising an outline perpendicular to its plane until a body comes out of it. The usual way from drawing to part; under Create → Create from sketch this kind is called Extrude base shape, and other programs call it extruding.

Pocket — the same inwards: the outline is cut out of an existing body instead of a new one being set on top.

Profile — the closed outline a body is made from. Not the same as the material or printer profile, which supplies values.

Curve — a smooth line through several placed points, for shapes that are neither straight nor circular. Other design programs call it a spline.

Guide line — a line that carries constraints but forms no body itself. The centre line something hangs on symmetrically is not meant to be printed too.

Fit — how tightly two parts sit inside one another. The clearance needed comes from the material profile.

Clearance — the gap between peg and hole so that the two can be joined. Too little jams, too much wobbles.

Press fit — interference instead of clearance: the part is pressed in and holds by itself.

Tolerance — the amount by which a dimension deliberately departs from the nominal size so that the printed result comes out right.

Shrinkage — plastic contracts as it cools. That is why a printed part is slightly smaller than drawn.

Elephant foot — the lowest layer is pressed against the bed and spreads outwards. The part is wider at the bottom than planned.

Overhang — a face growing outwards at an angle. Beyond a certain angle the layer below has nothing left to rest on.

Supports — material printed under an overhang and broken off afterwards.

Island — an area of a layer with nothing underneath it. Without a support the printer prints into thin air there.

Bridge (span) — a horizontal run between two points of support. Short bridges succeed without support, long ones sag.

Nozzle — the opening the plastic comes out of, usually 0.4 mm. It limits how fine a detail can be.

Line width — how wide the nozzle lays a line. For filament printing, Solidon uses two adjacent lines as a guideline for minimum wall thickness.

Layer height — how thick one layer is, usually 0.2 mm. Smaller means finer and slower.

Slicer — the program that turns the model into the print file. Solidon is not one and replaces none.

G-code — the finished list of instructions for the printer. It comes out of the slicer.

STL — the most widespread format: triangles only, no unit, no colour.

3MF — the modern successor: with unit, colours and several objects in one file. Wherever the slicer can read it, it is the better choice.

STEP — a format with real faces and edges instead of triangles. What classical CAD programs exchange.

GLB — the format of the viewers: triangles with colours, in a single file that every browser opens. Meant for showing, not for printing.

Report — the list of what stands out about the scene, each entry with an action that fixes it.

Filament — a named spool with a colour and print settings of its own. In multi-colour printing it is assigned to a whole part or to a recognised face.

Which models Solidon uses

Solidon computes geometry itself and needs nothing for that. Two things come from outside, and each of them needs a model: the chat, and generating from text or an image. Without either, everything else runs — importing, changing, checking, exporting.

For the chat: a language model

Runs on this machine, through Ollama. It is fetched in Edit → Set up the chat: one button starts the service, one loads the model, one checks it. Instead of a local model, your own key for a hosted one also works.

The default is in bold. Measured against eight requests that each call for one tool call — for one that is deliberately unclear, asking back is the right response. A model that only writes about it instead of doing it answers in the chat and does nothing. Hence the button Check tools: neither size nor provider predicts it.

Checked and not recommended

Below 7 billion parameters the calls fail reproducibly. And the graphics card decides the time: where Ollama does not address it, it computes on the processor, and that is not a different speed but a different order of magnitude.

For generating: three models

They run in ComfyUI, side by side, and Solidon sets up all three — in the list of optional programs, ComfyUI's row carries Set up nodes and model …. Only generating from text needs the third one; that is why it is a checkbox of its own.

The image model

Only for generating from text. If you bring a photo or a drawing, you never need it — and Solidon does not download seven gigabytes unasked for something an existing image makes unnecessary. That is why it is a checkbox of its own in the setup; if it is missing when generating, the button Set up image model … leads straight there.

sd_xl_base_1.0.safetensors is fetched from the repository stabilityai/stable-diffusion-xl-base-1.0 on Hugging Face, at a fixed revision and with a checksum, into models/checkpoints in the ComfyUI folder. If you prefer, put it there yourself; then restart ComfyUI once, and Generate model accepts a sentence instead of an image as well. Its licence is the CreativeML Open RAIL++-M by Stability AI; the uses it excludes are listed in its attachment and bind whoever uses the model.

Another SDXL model works too: Solidon takes what lies in the folder, preferring juggernaut and dreamshaper over the base model. Models with refiner, inpaint or turbo in the name are not taken — they do a different job.

How long it takes

Measured on an RTX 4080: from an image about fifteen seconds, from text about two and a half minutes. The difference is the image model — it first loads seven gigabytes into graphics memory and then computes an image before any body exists at all. After that the same chain follows in both cases: fit to working size, repair, and on very fine meshes reduce the triangles.

Without a suitable graphics card both take many times as long. If something breaks off, it is an error, not slowness — the dialog then shows ComfyUI's own message and the step where it broke off.

Materials, printers, standard parts

Materials

All dimensions are in millimetres. “Clearance” is the gap that lets fitted parts move. “Press fit” is the interference that holds parts tightly together. A calibrated profile uses measured values instead of defaults.

Printer

The selected printer decides what fits on the bed and when a wall counts as too thin — two nozzle lines on a filament printer, the minimum wall of its profile on a resin printer. The smallest detail is set by the nozzle on a filament printer and by the pixel on a resin printer.

Standard parts

Where the dimensions come from when a part places a screw hole, a nut trap or a thread. A printable internal thread of a size fits a hole between its tap drill hole and its nominal size. None of it is estimated.

Nuts, washers, heat-set inserts, magnets, bearings, extrusion profiles and tubes live in the same table; the parts look them up there.

Messages, word for word

What the application says when something does not work — word for word, so it can be looked up. An error never ends in “failed” here: every message comes with at least one way forward.

The line below it in the window names the reason for this particular case — which wall is too thin, which value is out of range, which file was meant.

Scene

Arrange on the bed

Lays all objects out side by side on the build plate.

Location: Command palette → Arrange on the bed

Shortcut Ctrl+Shift+O

Check overlaps

Reports overlaps and anything sticking out of the build volume.

Location: Command palette → Check overlaps

Check the assembly path

Checks whether two parts can reach their position — not just whether they fit once there. The first selected part is pushed into the second, turned, or first pushed and then turned.

Location: Actions on the right (with a body selected) → Check the assembly path

When not to use it: On open bodies, because they have no inside and cannot be measured this way.

Duplicate object

Creates further copies of the object. Each stays an object of its own, and the quantity can be changed in the history.

Location: Actions on the right (with a body selected) → Duplicate object

Shortcut Ctrl+D

Remove object

Takes an object out of the scene. The step is in the history, so an undo brings it back.

Location: Actions on the right (with a body selected) → Remove object

Shortcut Del

Rename object

Gives an object a different name. The geometry is untouched.

Location: Actions on the right (with a body selected) → Rename object

Shortcut F2

Repair

Repair

Closes holes, removes faulty triangles, aligns the outer sides and resolves overlaps.

Location: Actions on the right (with a feature selected: Open edge) → Repair

Shortcut Ctrl+Shift+R · Applies to: Open edge

Transformation

Align to feature

Brings a bore axis or a face into line with a second one.

Location: Actions on the right (with a feature selected: Hole, peg, Face) → Align to feature

Applies to: Hole, peg, Face

Copies in a row or circle

Places copies in a row or on a circle — a hole pattern, a ring of screw bosses, a row of clips. A single step in the history, and the count stays editable.

Location: Actions on the right (with a body selected) → Copies in a row or circle

Fit to size

Scales an object so its longest edge matches the given size. For anything whose size you know but whose factor you would have to work out first.

Location: Actions on the right (with a body selected) → Fit to size

Mirror

Mirrors an object about an axis. For the counterpart of a part — left and right bracket from the same construction.

Location: Actions on the right (with a body selected) → Mirror

Shortcut Ctrl+M

Move

Moves an object by the given millimetres.

Location: Actions on the right (with a body selected) → Move

Shortcut Ctrl+T

Orient for printing

Finds the orientation with the least support for every body in the scene, then rearranges the bed. Each one gets its own, and whatever already stands without supports stays standing.

Location: Actions on the right (with nothing selected) → Orient for printing

Place on the bed

Puts the underside of the object on the print bed.

Location: Actions on the right (with a body selected) → Place on the bed

Shortcut Ctrl+Shift+B

Place on the bed together

Places the selected bodies on the print bed together, preserving their relative positions.

Location: Actions on the right (with a body selected) → Place on the bed together

Rotate

Rotates an object about an axis. The pivot decides around what: its own centre, the project origin, or the centre of the bed.

Location: Actions on the right (with a body selected) → Rotate

Shortcut Ctrl+R

Scale

Scales an object uniformly or per axis.

Location: Actions on the right (with a body selected) → Scale

Basic shapes

Add a box

Creates a box on the print bed or on a selected surface.

Location: Create → Basic shapes → Add a box (via the history step context menu)

Add a box

Creates a cuboid with real edges — chamfers and fillets can be set on them later.

Location: Create → Basic shapes → Add a box

Add a cylinder

Creates a cylinder with real edges on the print bed or on a selected surface.

Location: Create → Basic shapes → Add a cylinder

Add a cylinder

Creates a cylinder on the print bed or on a selected surface.

Location: Create → Basic shapes → Add a cylinder (via the history step context menu)

Add a sphere

Creates a sphere with a true spherical surface on the print bed or on a selected surface.

Location: Create → Basic shapes → Add a sphere

Add a sphere

Creates a sphere on the print bed or on a selected surface.

Location: Create → Basic shapes → Add a sphere (via the history step context menu)

Add a tube

Creates a tube with true circular faces on the print bed or on a selected surface, sized by wall thickness or inside diameter.

Location: Create → Basic shapes → Add a tube

Add a tube

Creates a tube on the print bed or on a selected surface, sized by wall thickness or inside diameter.

Location: Create → Basic shapes → Add a tube (via the history step context menu)

Container with lid

Creates a round or rectangular container with a matching screw, push-fit or hinged lid.

Location: Create → Basic shapes → Container with lid

Create cone

Creates a cone or truncated cone with a true conical surface on the print bed or on a selected surface.

Location: Create → Basic shapes → Create cone

Create cone

Creates a cone or truncated cone on the print bed or on a selected surface.

Location: Create → Basic shapes → Create cone (via the history step context menu)

Create organizer

Creates an organizer with linked compartment dimensions and individually adjustable dividers.

Location: Create → Basic shapes → Create organizer

Create ring

Creates a closed round ring with a true toroidal surface on the print bed or on a selected surface.

Location: Create → Basic shapes → Create ring

Create ring

Creates a closed round ring on the print bed or on a selected surface.

Location: Create → Basic shapes → Create ring (via the history step context menu)

Create screw

A bolt with a true helical external thread and editable faces, supported by STEP export. Enlarged by clearance and subtracted from a body, it becomes the internal thread.

Location: Create → Basic shapes → Create screw

Profile clamp with liners

Creates two bolted shells and two separate replaceable liners from one shared mating outline.

Location: Create → Basic shapes → Profile clamp with liners

Combine and subtract

Blend together

Joins two bodies with a flowing transition instead of a sharp crease. For handles, struts and anything that must not tear at the inner corner once printed.

Location: Actions on the right (with a body selected) → Blend together

When not to use it: On parts whose dimensions matter, because sharp edges soften on the grid. For a fit, use an ordinary union.

Cut counter-form

Cuts a pocket into the first selected insert for each further part. It follows the outline of the part with clearance, from its lowest point through the top, so it comes straight out. The parts stay where they are.

Location: Actions on the right (with a body selected) → Cut counter-form

When not to use it: For a pocket in the exact shape of the part, with undercuts and no clearance, use Subtract.

Intersection

Keeps only the area shared by all selected objects. The object selected first keeps its name and material.

Location: Actions on the right (with a body selected) → Intersection

Shortcut Ctrl+Shift+X

Subtract

Subtracts every subsequently selected object from the first. Select the part to keep first, then everything to remove.

Location: Actions on the right (with a body selected) → Subtract

Shortcut Ctrl+Shift+A

Unite

Merges the selected objects into one. The object selected first keeps its name and material; the others become part of it.

Location: Actions on the right (with a body selected) → Unite

Shortcut Ctrl+Shift+V

Sketch

Cut a hole pattern

Cuts a regular field of holes, slots, or honeycomb openings into the drawn outline. Margins, inner contours, and excluded areas are preserved.

Location: Create → Cut a hole pattern

Cut along a path

Sweeps a cross-section along an arc or a drawn path and removes it from the chosen body. This gives a guided channel that starts at the top and can leave through the side.

Location: Create → Create from sketch … (Kind: Cut along a path)

When not to use it: On an imported mesh, the cut is approximated by straight segments. The deviation is smaller than a nozzle can reproduce. For true curves, use a body with exact faces and edges.

Cut by blending

Removes a transition between two outlines from the chosen body. At the top lies the basic shape or drawing, at depth its scaled copy or a second drawing: a funnel, a channel from square to round.

Location: Create → Create from sketch … (Kind: Cut by blending)

When not to use it: On an imported mesh, the cut is approximated by straight segments. The deviation is smaller than a nozzle can reproduce. For true curves, use a body with exact faces and edges.

Cut by revolving

Revolves a cross-section around an axis and removes what it sweeps from the chosen body. This makes a ring groove in a shaft or in a hole, all the way round or as a segment.

Location: Create → Create from sketch … (Kind: Cut by revolving)

When not to use it: On an imported mesh, the cut is approximated by straight segments. The deviation is smaller than a nozzle can reproduce. For true curves, use a body with exact faces and edges.

Cut pocket

Cuts a base shape as a pocket into a body — vertically down from the top edge, optionally all the way through. Clicking a face preselects the location. On an exact body, faces and edges are preserved; on an imported mesh, the result is a mesh.

Location: Create → Create from sketch … (Kind: Cut pocket)

Applies to: Face

Extrude base shape

Raises a base shape or a drawing straight up into a body. Curves stay true curves — a circle really is round.

Location: Create → Create from sketch … (Kind: Extrude base shape)

Join to body

Pulls the outline up and joins it to the selected body — one body, one step. An exact body stays exact, an imported mesh stays a mesh.

Location: Create → Create from sketch … (Kind: Join to body)

When not to use it: Not for a separate part: if the extrusion should become a second body, use “Extrude base shape”.

Applies to: Face

Revolve a cross-section

Revolves a cross-section around the vertical axis: a rectangle becomes a sleeve, a circle a ring. The body stands on the print bed.

Location: Create → Create from sketch … (Kind: Revolve a cross-section)

Span between two outlines

Spans a body between the base shape and its scaled copy at height — truncated pyramid, truncated cone, funnel.

Location: Create → Create from sketch … (Kind: Span between two outlines)

Sweep along a bend

Sweeps a cross-section along a bend: starting upright, tilting sideways with the bend radius — a pipe elbow in one step.

Location: Create → Create from sketch … (Kind: Sweep along a bend)

Shaping

Add a chamfer

Bevels selected edges using equal widths, two distances, or a distance and angle. Works on bodies with exact faces and edges and on meshes.

Location: Actions on the right (with a body selected) → Add a chamfer

When not to use it: When three unequal chamfers meet at a corner and its shape matters. On a mesh the corner closes flat, otherwise curved.

Add bead

Lays a round strip on the chosen edges — outside as a bead, in an inner corner as a fillet weld. The smooth cove, by contrast, is what Fillet does on the same edge.

Location: Actions on the right (with a body selected) → Add bead

When not to use it: Where the outer size matters, because a bead protrudes beyond the body. Faces and edges become triangles in the process.

Apply draft angle

Sets chosen faces at an angle, or all walls along the pull direction — for demoulding, or so a stacking bin actually stacks.

Location: Actions on the right (with a feature selected: Face) → Apply draft angle

Applies to: Face

Change chamber

Changes the inner size and depth of a recognised chamber, groove or channel as a whole: floor, walls and roundings move together, the outer size stays.

Location: Actions on the right (with a feature selected: Face) → Change chamber

When not to use it: On a chamber without a flat rim. A single wall is moved with “Offset face”.

Applies to: Face

Change closure

Changes clearance and turn of a recognised bayonet or detent at all positions at once. Lugs become narrower, notches and tracks wider, the stop moves further — or the other way round.

Location: Actions on the right (with a feature selected: Face, Hole, peg) → Change closure

When not to use it: On curved sides and round detent notches. Change the notches through their radius with “Change feature”.

Applies to: Face, Hole, peg

Fillet

Rounds the selected edges, with one radius or with a radius that changes from start to end. This works on an exact body as on a mesh.

Location: Actions on the right (with a body selected) → Fillet

When not to use it: When the fillet must be a true curve. On a mesh it is made of straight segments, finer than any nozzle.

Hollow out

Hollows a body with editable faces to the chosen wall thickness and leaves the top open. This turns a block into a box in one step.

Location: Actions on the right (with a body selected) → Hollow out (in the same dialog — the body decides)

When not to use it: Not on parts that carry loads — a thin shell breaks differently from a solid body.

Offset face

Grabs a face and moves it perpendicular to itself; the neighbouring walls grow with it. The way to change a wall without hunting for the operation that made it — on an imported model there is none.

Location: Actions on the right (with a feature selected: Face) → Offset face

When not to use it: On a curved face, because it has no single direction. Change the feature through its dimensions there.

Shortcut Q · Applies to: Face

Features

Change bore

Changes the diameter and depth of a recognised hole — on a slot its width; the screw's travel stays, the ends grow with it.

Location: Actions on the right (with a feature selected: Hole, Slot) → Change bore

Applies to: Hole, Slot

Change feature

Changes the diameter of a recognised feature: pin, countersink, taper, dome, socket, bead or groove. On a thread it changes diameter and pitch, on a fillet the radius, on a pattern spacing, cell width and depth.

Location: Actions on the right (with a feature selected: peg, Cone, Spherical face, Fillet, Ring face, Thread, Pattern) → Change feature

Applies to: peg, Cone, Spherical face, Fillet, Ring face, Thread, Pattern

Combine into a pattern

Combines chosen single features into a pattern that can be removed or changed as a whole. The shape stays as it is.

Location: Actions on the right (with a body selected) → Combine into a pattern

When not to use it: Through and deep holes stay holes with their own actions; several identical ones can be changed together on the right under Selection.

Countersink

Countersinks the mouth of a bore so a screw head sits flush.

Location: Actions on the right (with a feature selected: Hole, Cone) → Countersink

Applies to: Hole, Cone

Detect features here

Detects complete features in a selected area, including on very large meshes.

Location: Actions on the right (with a body selected) → Detect features here

Drill a bore

Drills a round hole and keeps faces and edges individually editable — chamfers, fillets and STEP export remain possible afterwards.

Location: Actions on the right (with a feature selected: Face) → Drill a bore (in the same dialog — the body decides)

Applies to: Face

Drill a bore

Drills a round hole or a slot — enlarged by the material tolerance if you want.

Location: Actions on the right (with a feature selected: Face) → Drill a bore

Shortcut Ctrl+B · Applies to: Face

Duplicate feature

Creates a recognised feature a second time: hole, slot, peg, countersink, taper, dome, socket, bead or groove.

Location: Actions on the right (with a feature selected: Hole, peg, Cone, Spherical face, Slot, Ring face) → Duplicate feature

Applies to: Hole, peg, Cone, Spherical face, Slot, Ring face

Fill a bore

Fills a bore back in — for instance when a downloaded part has one too many.

Location: Actions on the right (with a feature selected: Hole) → Fill a bore

Applies to: Hole

Move feature

Moves a recognised feature to another place: hole, slot, peg, countersink, taper, dome, socket, bead, groove or air pocket.

Location: Actions on the right (with a feature selected: Hole, peg, Cone, Spherical face, Air pocket, Slot, Ring face) → Move feature

Applies to: Hole, peg, Cone, Spherical face, Air pocket, Slot, Ring face

Pin for hole

Builds a loose pin that fits this hole: thinner by the clearance from the material profile, as long as the hole. On a hinged lid with a pin it is the axle through all three eyes.

Location: Actions on the right (with a feature selected: Hole) → Pin for hole

Applies to: Hole

Pull into a slot

Turns a recognised hole into a slot or changes the length, width and direction of an existing slot. The length can be increased or decreased, down to the width — then it is a round hole again. Without a new width, the measured diameter is kept.

Location: Actions on the right (with a feature selected: Hole, Slot) → Pull into a slot

Applies to: Hole, Slot

Remove feature

Removes a recognised feature: hole, slot, pin, countersink, taper, dome, socket, bead, groove, thread, fillet or pattern — and fills an air pocket with material.

Location: Actions on the right (with a feature selected: Hole, peg, Cone, Spherical face, Air pocket, Slot, Ring face, Fillet, Thread, Pattern) → Remove feature

Applies to: Hole, peg, Cone, Spherical face, Air pocket, Slot, Ring face, Fillet, Thread, Pattern

Repeat feature

Repeats recognised features in a row, on a circle or mirrored: hole, countersink, slot, peg, taper, dome, bead or groove. The source stays in charge — if its size changes in the history, the copies follow.

Location: Actions on the right (with a feature selected: Hole, peg, Cone, Spherical face, Slot, Ring face) → Repeat feature

Applies to: Hole, peg, Cone, Spherical face, Slot, Ring face

Turn feature

Tilts a recognised feature about its centre: hole, slot, peg, countersink, taper, bead or groove.

Location: Actions on the right (with a feature selected: Hole, peg, Cone, Slot, Ring face) → Turn feature

Applies to: Hole, peg, Cone, Slot, Ring face

Parts

All parts share these placement values. They are listed here once, rather than repeated in the tables below:

Barrel hinge

A hinge that comes off the printer already moving: two leaves around a printed-in pin, with the print gap between them. Nothing to assemble, nothing to insert.

Location: File → Part catalogue …, then under Mechanics: Barrel hinge

When not to use it: After a material change without a test piece. The gap comes from the material, and if it is too tight the hinge fuses.

Applies to: Face

Bayonet lock

A closure you insert and turn: the socket has L-slots through its wall, the collar the matching lugs. Insert axially, turn through the turn angle, and at the end of the slot the lug stops. Place both halves with the same dimensions.

Location: File → Part catalogue …, then under Mechanics: Bayonet lock

When not to use it: When the closure must seal or withstand shaking. That needs a seal and a detent.

Bayonet lock

A closure you insert and turn: the socket has L-slots through its wall, the collar the matching lugs. Insert axially, turn through the turn angle, and at the end of the slot the lug stops. Place both halves with the same dimensions.

Location: File → Part catalogue …, then under Mechanics: Bayonet lock

When not to use it: When the closure must seal or withstand shaking. That needs a seal and a detent.

Applies to: Face

Cable clip

A clamp that sits on a face and holds a cable. The opening is narrower than the cable: you press it in, and it stays.

Location: File → Part catalogue …, then under Cables and tubes: Cable clip

When not to use it: For cables under tension, because a clip only guides. Use the cable gland with strain relief for that.

Applies to: Face

Cable gland with strain relief

Gland for a round cable with a clamping point behind it. Without it every tug on the cable pulls straight at the solder joint.

Location: File → Part catalogue …, then under Cables and tubes: Cable gland with strain relief

Applies to: Face

Channel joint

Joins two gutter segments with the same cross-section. Outside as a sleeve with a stop in the middle that closes the butt joint in the gutter's cross-section; inside as an insert with a ramp for gutters with no room at the side.

Location: File → Part catalogue …, then under Cables and tubes: Channel joint

When not to use it: When the segments should snap together, because the joint only keeps them aligned. Add a latch to each segment for that.

Channel joint

Joins two gutter segments with the same cross-section. Outside as a sleeve with a stop in the middle that closes the butt joint in the gutter's cross-section; inside as an insert with a ramp for gutters with no room at the side.

Location: File → Part catalogue …, then under Cables and tubes: Channel joint

When not to use it: When the segments should snap together, because the joint only keeps them aligned. Add a latch to each segment for that.

Corner gusset

A triangle in an inside corner: it holds two walls square where they would otherwise spread. The classic answer to a corner that flexes when you grip it.

Location: File → Part catalogue …, then under Structure: Corner gusset

When not to use it: In a corner something has to pass through, because it fills it diagonally. A wall that is too soft needs the stiffening rib.

Applies to: Face

Create container insert

Creates a removable insert with compartments and material clearance to the container.

Location: Create → Parts → Create container insert

Create lid

Creates a matching lid with a collar for an opening. The cavity is cut out of the body rather than measured again — the clearance comes from the material profile.

Location: Create → Parts → Create lid

Applies to: Face

Create screw lid

Puts a threaded neck on the opening and creates the matching screw lid. Both threads come from the same pitch, the clearance from the material profile.

Location: Create → Parts → Create screw lid

Applies to: Face

Detent dial

A rotary closure with detent positions, for a shaker lid for example. The guide carries a post, a collar with detent notches, tactile marks and one opening per position; the dial carries a window, a spring hub and a detent tongue. The dial clips on from above and comes off again.

Location: File → Part catalogue …, then under Mechanics: Detent dial

When not to use it: When the lid must seal, because the dial only rests on top. Print both parts lying flat.

Detent dial

A rotary closure with detent positions, for a shaker lid for example. The guide carries a post, a collar with detent notches, tactile marks and one opening per position; the dial carries a window, a spring hub and a detent tongue. The dial clips on from above and comes off again.

Location: File → Part catalogue …, then under Mechanics: Detent dial

When not to use it: When the lid must seal, because the dial only rests on top. Print both parts lying flat.

Dowel pin and bore

Pin or bore as a pair, for plugging two parts together. The clearance comes from the material profile, so a later calibration reaches old projects too.

Location: File → Part catalogue …, then under Mechanics: Dowel pin and bore

Applies to: Face

Fit test body

Pins and bores with staggered clearance. Print once, try, and the value is settled — it belongs in the material profile afterwards, not in the model.

Location: File → Part catalogue …, then under Calibration: Fit test body

Fit test body

Pins and bores with staggered clearance. Print once, try, and the value is settled — it belongs in the material profile afterwards, not in the model.

Location: File → Part catalogue …, then under Calibration: Fit test body

Foot

A foot under an enclosure — printed, or as a pocket for a bought rubber one. Four of them keep a device steady and its underside off the table.

Location: File → Part catalogue …, then under Mounting: Foot

When not to use it: For parts meant to rest flat, and for screwing down. A foot lifts the part and has no hole.

Applies to: Face