User Guide & FAQ

Q: My build keeps failing. What should I do?

Ask the chat to fix it — describe the problem or just say "please fix the error and rebuild". If it persists, simplify the part to its base solid, confirm that builds, then add features one message at a time.

Q: Can I get a 2D drawing (DXF) of my model?

Yes, from any angle. Turn the model to the view you want using the ISO, Top, Front and Side buttons above the preview or by dragging, then open Download and choose Download this view. It is projected from the real solid geometry, so it is dimensionally correct, and it comes out at the orientation you see on screen.

Q: The traced outline doesn't look right. Can I fix it?

Yes. In the 2D Outline tab choose Improve trace, adjust Detail (smoother vs sharper) and Specks (keep vs remove), toggle Include holes, then Re-trace photo. Most poor traces come down to the photo: one part filling the frame on a plain, high-contrast background traces best.

Telosolid turns a plain-language description — or a photo — of a mechanical part into a real 3D model you can view and download as STL or STEP, plus 2D DXF drawings for laser cutting, waterjet, and shop drawings. This guide covers everything you can do as a user — from your first sign-in to getting clean, manufacturable files.

Quick tour of the screen

Here's the Telosolid Studio workspace. The numbered markers point to the controls you'll use most — the legend below explains each one.

Annotated Telosolid Studio interface. 1: the Design Pilot, History and 3D tabs at the top of the left panel. 2: the AI Design Pilot conversation area. 3: the prompt input box at the bottom of the left panel. 4: the Send and New Design buttons. 5: the ISO, Top, Front, Side and Fit view buttons above the 3D preview. 6: the Measure button. 7: the Rebuild button, top right. 8: the Download button, top right. 9: the 3D model preview. — The Telosolid Studio workspace with its main controls labelled 1–9.

Design Pilot / History / 3D tabs — switch between your active design chat, your saved past sessions, and the 3D view.
AI Design Pilot — describe your part and chat with the AI here. The green dot by the tabs means the AI is online and ready.
Prompt box — type your description. You can also upload a reference image (camera icon) or dictate with the microphone.
Send / New Design — Send submits your prompt to generate a design; + New Design starts a fresh part.
View buttons (ISO / Top / Front / Side / Fit) — snap the camera to standard engineering views; Fit re-centres the model in the viewport.
Measure — measure distances and dimensions on the model.
Rebuild — reconstruct the current design in the viewport. When the build finishes you'll see Ready for Fabrication.
Download — every file for the current design in one place: STL and STEP for the 3D model, DXF drawings projected from it (Top / Front / Side / Iso), and the DXF of any 2D outline traced from your photo.
3D preview — your model. Drag to orbit, scroll to zoom, right-drag (or two fingers) to pan.
3D Model / 2D Outline tabs — above the preview. When you design from a photo, Telosolid also traces a clean 2D outline of the part; the 2D Outline tab shows it (a dot appears when a new one is ready). Both are kept — switching tabs never discards the other.

1. Getting started

Telosolid runs entirely in your browser — there is nothing to install.

Create an account. Sign up with your email and verify it via the link we send you.
Wait for approval. New accounts are reviewed before access is granted (typically within 12–24 hours). This keeps capacity reserved for active users. You'll be able to sign in as soon as you're approved.
Sign in and you'll land in your workspace, ready to describe your first part.

Tip: If you haven't been approved after 24 hours, reach out via the contact form and we'll fast-track you.

2. Your workspace & sessions

Each design lives in its own session — a conversation plus the model it produced. Your sessions are saved to your account, so you can close the tab and pick up later.

Working with sessions

New session — start a fresh part. Use one session per part for the cleanest results.
Switch — select any session from the sidebar to return to that design and its history.
Rename — sessions are auto-named from your prompt. To rename, use the rename control next to the session and type a new name (works on mobile too).
Delete — remove a session you no longer need.

3. How to prompt (best practice)

Telosolid works best when you describe a part the way you'd brief a machinist: what it is, its dimensions, and its features. Clear, specific prompts produce clean geometry on the first try.

Do

State real dimensions and units — e.g. "a 60 mm × 40 mm × 5 mm plate" or "4 inches". Telosolid can design in any units you specify; if no unit is provided, millimetres (mm) are used by default.
Describe features explicitly — bores, holes, fillets, chamfers, counterbores, wall thickness, bolt circles: "a central 10 mm bore and four M4 holes on a 50 mm bolt circle".
Do one part at a time. Telosolid generates a single solid part per design — not multi-part assemblies. Model components separately.
Iterate in the same session. Follow up with refinements: "make it 3 mm thicker", "add a 2 mm fillet to the top edges". It remembers the current design.

Avoid

Vague briefs ("make a cool bracket") — give size and features.
Full assemblies, threads modelled as real helices on tiny fasteners, or organic/freeform surfaces — these are mechanical-solid strengths, not sculpting.

Example prompt: "A motor spacer plate, 56 mm square, 6 mm thick, with a 22 mm central bore, four 4.5 mm mounting holes 5 mm in from each corner, and a 1 mm chamfer on the top outer edge."

Designing from a photo or sketch

Attach a reference image with the camera icon in the prompt box — a photo of a real part, a hand sketch, or a dimensioned drawing. Telosolid identifies the object and its features from the image and builds to match it, so a good image does much of the describing for you. You can attach more than one view (for example, front and side), and large photos are downscaled automatically.

For the best results, use an image that is:

One part, filling the frame — a single object against a plain, uncluttered background. Crop out everything else.
Sharp and evenly lit — in focus, no motion blur, and minimal shadows, reflections, or glare (matte parts photograph better than shiny ones).
Shot straight‑on — a square front, top, or side view reads far better than a dramatic perspective angle. If the shape isn't clear from one view, attach a couple of orthogonal views.
High‑contrast — the part should stand out clearly from the background.

Getting the size right — the single most useful image tip: a photo has no built‑in scale, so Telosolid can only estimate real dimensions from what the object looks like. To lock the size, do any one of these:

Put a ruler or calipers in the shot, laid alongside the part and readable.
Include a common object for scale (a coin, a standard bolt) if no ruler is handy.
Annotate the image with the key dimensions, or
State the critical dimension in your text — e.g. "the plate is 80 mm wide". Your text always overrides whatever the image implies, so one real measurement anchors the whole part.

You also get a 2D outline. Whenever you attach a photo of a real part, Telosolid traces its silhouette into a clean DXF alongside the 3D build — see 2D drawings & outlines. For flat parts (brackets, gaskets, plates) that outline can build the model directly.

Sketches and drawings work very well — often better than photos — because you can label them. A dimensioned orthographic sketch (front / top / side with lengths, diameters, and hole positions written on it) gives Telosolid exact numbers to build from.

Avoid: busy backgrounds, several parts in one photo, extreme or artistic angles, a tiny part lost in a large frame, and screenshots cluttered with UI, watermarks, or arrows that aren't dimensions.

A worked example in Telosolid Studio: on the left, a phone photo of a wall thermostat attached with the prompt 'Design this cover'; on the right, the generated 3D model — a rounded rectangular cover plate with a large circular opening for the dial — shown ready for fabrication in the 3D preview. — A real example: a quick phone photo of a wall thermostat plus the prompt “Design this cover” produced this cover model. Adding a ruler to the photo would pin the exact dimensions.

4. Viewing your model

When generation finishes, your part compiles and appears in the 3D viewport. Compilation runs on a dedicated engine that may take a few extra seconds the first time after a quiet period — this is normal.

Orbit — click and drag to rotate.
Zoom — scroll or pinch.
Pan — drag with the right mouse button (or two fingers).
View modes — switch between shaded and wireframe-style views to inspect geometry.
Standard views — ISO / Top / Front / Side snap the camera to engineering views, and Fit re-centres the part. These follow the normal CAD convention (Z up) and match the DXF drawings exactly: the Top view on screen is the same view you get from the Top DXF.

If you designed from a photo, the 3D Model and 2D Outline tabs sit above the preview — see 2D drawings & outlines below.

5. 2D drawings & outlines (DXF)

Telosolid produces 2D vector geometry in two different ways. Both download as DXF, which opens in any CAD or CAM package and drives laser cutters, waterjets, routers, and plotters.

Drawings projected from your 3D model

Once a model is built, Telosolid can flatten it into a true orthographic view — any view, not just the standard ones. Set the model to the angle you want using the view buttons above the preview (ISO, Top, Front, Side) or just by dragging to rotate it. Then open Download (top right) and choose Download this view.

What you see is what you get: the drawing comes out at the angle and orientation on your screen. Pick one of the four standard views first and you get exactly that classic engineering view, named accordingly (_top.dxf, _front.dxf, and so on).

Every view is projected from the real solid geometry, so edges, holes and curved silhouettes land exactly where they are on the model — the DXF is dimensionally correct, not a screenshot.

Outlines traced from a photo

When you attach a photo of a real part, Telosolid also separates the part from its background and traces its silhouette into a clean 2D outline. This runs alongside the 3D build, so it never holds your design up, and it appears in the 2D Outline tab above the preview (a dot marks a new one).

In that tab you can:

Photo — show or hide the original photo behind the traced line, to check how faithfully it followed the edge.
Zoom / Fit — inspect the trace closely; the outline stays locked to the photo.
Improve trace — if the line is too rough, too smooth, or picked up specks, adjust Detail and Specks, toggle Include holes, then Re-trace photo.
Download DXF — save the outline (also in the top-right Download menu).

Flat parts can be built from the outline. If the part is flat — a bracket, gasket, plate, or panel — its silhouette is its shape, so Telosolid can construct the 3D model directly from the traced profile. Set Part is: Flat and choose Construct 3D geometry. For parts whose depth varies (a drill body, a bottle), leave it on 3D object: the model is built from the photo as a whole and the outline stays a 2D deliverable.

For a clean trace, the same photo advice applies as for designing: one part filling the frame, on a plain high-contrast background, sharp and evenly lit, shot straight-on. A busy background is the most common cause of a messy outline.

6. When a build fails

Sometimes a design won't compile on the first attempt — a dimension conflicts, or a feature can't be built as described. Telosolid automatically tries to repair and rebuild once. If it still fails, you are in control:

Most useful tip in this guide: if a build fails, just ask the chat to fix it — type something like "that failed to build, please fix the error and try again". Telosolid will analyse the error and attempt a corrected build. You can repeat this, refining as you go.

What helps the fix succeed

Loosen the conflict. If a hole is larger than the wall around it, say so: "the bore is too big for the body — reduce the bore to 18 mm".
Simplify, then add back. Get the base solid building first, then add fillets, chamfers, and holes in follow-up messages.
Be specific about the change rather than re-describing the whole part.

7. Downloading files

Everything for the current design lives under one Download button at the top right of the workspace. Items appear as they become available, and files are tied to your account.

STL — a mesh of the surface. Best for 3D printing and quick visual sharing. Not editable as parametric geometry.
STEP — true solid (B-rep) geometry. Best for CAD/CAM: import into Fusion, SolidWorks, Onshape, etc., and for machining/manufacturing.
DXF (2D drawing) — orthographic Top / Front / Side / Iso views projected from your 3D model. Useful for laser cutting, waterjet, and shop drawings.
DXF (2D outline) — the silhouette traced from your photo, when you designed from one. Also available in the 2D Outline tab.

Rule of thumb: printing → STL, machining or further CAD work → STEP, flat-sheet cutting or shop drawings → DXF.

8. Usage, plans & limits

Generation uses an AI allowance shown by the Usage left meter in the app. Each design and each fix-and-retry consumes some of it.

Running low? The meter warns you as you approach your limit.
Need more? If subscription plans are available on your account, you can upgrade from the billing section to raise your monthly allowance and design count.
Be efficient — clear prompts mean fewer rebuilds, which stretches your allowance.

9. Account & security

Forgot your password? Use the reset link on the sign-in page; we'll email you a secure reset.
Forgot your username? Request a reminder from the sign-in page.
Change your password any time from your account settings — this signs out other sessions for safety.
Your data — prompts, designs, and files are tied to your account and are not publicly accessible. See the Privacy Policy. You can request account deletion via Contact.

10. FAQ & troubleshooting

The first model after a while took longer — is something wrong?

No. The compilation engine scales down when idle to keep the service efficient, so the first build after a quiet period spends a few extra seconds starting up. Subsequent builds are fast.

My build keeps failing. What should I do?

Ask the chat to fix it (see When a build fails) — describe the problem or just say "please fix the error and rebuild". If it persists, simplify the part to its base solid, confirm that builds, then add features one message at a time.

Can I make an assembly with multiple parts?

Telosolid generates one solid part per design. Model each component in its own session and assemble them in your CAD tool after exporting STEP files.

What units does Telosolid use?

Any units you specify (for example, "30 mm" or "4 inches"). If you omit units, Telosolid defaults to millimetres (mm).

Which file should I download?

STL for 3D printing, STEP for CAD/machining, and DXF for 2D work — either an orthographic drawing projected from your model (Top / Front / Side / Iso) or the outline traced from your photo. Everything is under the Download button at the top right. See Downloading files.

Can I get a 2D drawing (DXF) of my model?

Yes, from any angle. Turn the model to the view you want — with the ISO / Top / Front / Side buttons above the preview, or by dragging — then open Download and choose Download this view. It is projected from the real solid geometry, so it is dimensionally correct, and it comes out at the orientation you see on screen. See 2D drawings & outlines.

What is the 2D Outline tab?

When you design from a photo of a real part, Telosolid also separates the part from its background and traces its silhouette into a clean 2D outline, which you can download as a DXF. It runs alongside the 3D build so it never delays your design, and a dot on the tab tells you a new outline is ready. Switching tabs never discards the other output.

The traced outline doesn't look right. Can I fix it?

Yes — in the 2D Outline tab choose Improve trace, adjust Detail (smoother vs sharper) and Specks (keep vs remove), toggle Include holes, then Re-trace photo. Turn Photo on to see the line against the original. Most poor traces come down to the photo: one part filling the frame on a plain, high-contrast background traces best.

Can Telosolid build a flat part from its photo outline?

Yes, and for flat parts that is the most accurate route. A bracket, gasket, plate, or panel is just its silhouette at a constant thickness, so set Part is: Flat in the 2D Outline tab and choose Construct 3D geometry — the model is built from the traced profile itself. For parts whose depth varies (a drill body, a bottle) leave it on 3D object; those build better from the photo as a whole, with the outline kept as a 2D file.

I signed up but can't sign in yet.

New accounts are approved before access (usually within 12–24 hours). Make sure you've verified your email. Still waiting after a day? Contact us to fast-track.

Can I keep editing a design later?

Yes — sessions are saved to your account. Reopen the session and continue with follow-up messages; the current design is remembered.

Is my design data private?

Yes. Your prompts, models, and downloads are tied to your account and aren't publicly accessible. Details are in our Privacy Policy.

Can I design from a photo or sketch?

Yes. Use the camera icon in the prompt box to attach a photo, hand sketch, or dimensioned drawing — Telosolid reads the object and its features from the image and builds to match. You can attach more than one view. See Designing from a photo or sketch for what makes a good image.

How do I get the size right when I design from a photo?

A photo has no inherent scale, so include a scale reference: lay a ruler or calipers next to the part, add a common object like a coin, annotate the image with dimensions, or simply state the key dimension in your text (for example, "the bracket is 80 mm wide"). Your text always overrides the image, so one real measurement anchors the whole part.

What kind of image gives the best result?

One part filling the frame against a plain background, sharp and evenly lit, shot straight‑on (a front, top, or side view rather than a dramatic angle), with good contrast. Dimensioned sketches work especially well because you can label exact measurements.

Still stuck? Contact us — we're happy to help.

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