Build, prepare and export 3D‑printable models in your browser
New here? Read the step-by-step User Guide (printable A5 / PDF)
The 3D Designer is an in‑browser modeller for 3D printing. Drop in primitive shapes, sketch your own profiles, combine them with booleans, check they're printable, and export to STL, 3MF, OBJ, GLB or PLY. It runs entirely in your browser and works offline.
.litez file to your own computer — as many as you like, on any plan — and Open from file brings it back, parameters and guides included.The designer fills the whole window. Every tool is on the tool rail down the left: click a group — Shapes, Create, Draw, Place, Arrange, Combine, Modify, Text, Measure, Print — and its tools open in a panel beside it, with their keyboard shortcuts; click a tool to use it, and Esc or a click elsewhere closes the panel. A group with a tool running shows an orange dot, and the running tool is highlighted in its panel. Search (/) finds any tool by name. The top bar keeps the menus for the design as a whole:
Undo / Redo are at the top of the tool rail. The arrow modes Move · Rotate · Scale (W / E / R) are under Place, where the active mode is highlighted. The move arrows and rotate rings always keep to the bed's axes — X red, Y green, Z blue — however a part is turned; only the scale handles turn with the part, because a part stretches along its own sides.
Click Shapes at the top of the tool rail and pick one to add it at the centre of the bed (it's selected automatically): boxes & plates, round forms, faceted solids, rings & fun, the gear, 3D text and My Shapes. Tip: press / anywhere to open the command palette and search/run any tool or shape by name.
Below the shapes are 3D text and My Shapes (your reusable library). Import lives in the File menu: STL, OBJ, 3MF (keeps colours & separate bodies), GLB / glTF, FBX, and SVG (which extrudes the outlines). Multi-part files come in as separate editable objects (each weld-cleaned for printing); tiny metre-scale models (common in GLB/glTF) are auto-scaled to millimetres — use the Scale / resize tool if a model arrives the wrong size.
The right panel has collapsible sections (click a header to fold it):
wall = 2.4, width = 60, even inner = width - 2*wall). Then type a formula into any Position, Size or Rotation box — width - 2*wall, wall*5 + 10, max(20, width/3) — and press Enter. The box is marked in purple and remembers its formula (click into it to see or edit it); change a parameter and every part that uses it resizes or moves. Typing a plain number unhooks the box. Formulas can use + − × ÷, ^, brackets, min, max, round, sqrt, sin/cos/tan (degrees) and pi. Parameters are saved with the design.Draw on the tool rail lets you draw your own profiles on the bed and pull them into 3D:
Push and pull a mesh like clay. From Modify on the tool rail pick Add sculpt ball (best results) or Sculpt selected; a brush bar appears over the viewport.
Sculpting moves existing vertices (it doesn't add detail on its own) — Subdivide first for finer features. Dense sculpts make large files, so run Check printability before exporting.
Boolean (two shapes): select the first, click ∪ Union, − Cut or ∩ Keep, then click the second (Esc cancels). Heavy operations run in the background with a spinner so the app stays responsive.
Screw holes: Combine → Screw hole… on the tool rail. Choose the screw (M2–M8) and the kind of hole — clearance (the screw passes through), countersunk (flat head sits flush), counterbore (a cap head sits in a pocket), heat-set insert, pilot (the screw cuts its own thread in the plastic) a hex nut trap, a captive nut slot (the nut sits Nut at mm inside the part and slides in along a slot that runs to the part's edge — Slot angle turns it in the face; parts too thin for the nut are refused) or bolt + nut (a counterbore for the bolt head where you click and a hex nut trap where the hole comes out on the far side) — then click faces to place holes. Heat-set insert holes have a small lead-in chamfer. The sizes fill in by themselves and can be changed; Print allowance (0.2 mm) is added because printed holes come out a little small, and Through goes right through the part. The holes are hole shapes: Apply holes cuts them. Insert sizes are typical ones; check your insert's packet.
Fit two parts: Combine → Fit two parts… on the tool rail. Select the part that goes in and the hole or part it goes into (Shift+click), choose a fit — press 0.1, tight 0.15, snug 0.2, sliding 0.3 or loose 0.4 mm on each side, or your own — and Apply: the part going in is resized (or the hole, if you choose) and centred. It shows the gap before and after. With one part selected, it is simply made smaller (or bigger) by the gap.
Hole mode (many at once): mark shapes as holes (they go translucent), position them, then Apply holes cuts every hole out of every solid in one step.
Most tools open a small floating panel over the viewport and show a live preview as you change the settings — green means it will be added (emboss), red means it will be cut away (engrave). Press Apply to commit or Cancel / Esc to back out.
-2.5). It lines up with the height of other faces and corners as you move ("lined up with a face"), and a double-click on another face repeats the last distance. Esc cancels; Esc again closes the tool. It works on any part, even ones already cut or joined, and the result stays a closed, printable solid. A push that would remove the whole part is refused.25 the way it is going, or 10,5,0 for X, Y, Z); after it is done, type a new distance to change it. Ctrl (or the Copy box) makes a copy instead. Straight after a copy, type 5x and Enter for five copies at that spacing, or /5 for five spread evenly over that distance — and retype to change it (3x, /8…). Esc puts it back; Esc again closes the tool.40,20 and Enter (it goes the way the mouse is). Circle / Polygon: click the centre, move, click — or type the radius. Lines: click point after point and click the first point again (or double-click) to close; type a length and Enter for an exact line; Backspace takes a point back. What you draw becomes a drawn face (white lines) for Push/Pull: push a circle in for a hole, pull a rectangle out for a boss. A shape drawn inside another drawn face becomes a hole in it, so each pushes and pulls on its own; one drawn beside the part on the same plane only adds (a tab). Lines that cross each other are refused.2 = 2 mm in, -2 = 2 mm out); a double-click on another face repeats it. The face is split into drawn faces shown as white lines — the inside and the ring round it — and Push/Pull picks each one on its own: push the inside down for a tray or recess, pull the ring up for a wall or frame. An outline outside the part makes a ring that only adds: pull it up for a lip, push it down for a skirt. Drawn faces are lines, not part of the model: they go when the part is moved or changed another way (Clear lines removes them). An offset too far for the face (the outline would cross itself) is shown red and refused.designv2.php?demo=8 opens demo 8 straight away.
All the gear tools are together under Create → Gears: Gear / ring gear, Helical / herringbone gear, Rack and pinion, Bevel / miter gear, Worm and worm wheel, Planetary gear set, GT2 pulley, belt & clamp, and Turn the gears. Chamfered and Rounded edges are cut into the gear, so it stays the size you typed.designv2.php?demo=a1…a5).You can also Split into parts (right‑click an imported/boolean mesh) to break it into its separate bodies.
Open the AI tool, describe what you want in plain English (e.g. "a desk organiser with three pen slots and a phone stand"), and the AI designs it: it works out the shape and real sizes, then builds it with curves, hollows, handles, lettering, holes and slots — not just stacked blocks. The model lands on the bed as a normal, editable object, so you can fine-tune, combine or cut it as usual.
Made a photo lithophane on one of the generator pages (flat, cylinder, cone, cube, globe, lantern, multi)? Click Send to 3D Designer there and it imports straight into the editor — already welded and watertight — ready to add a frame, stand, base or hanging loop, combine with other parts, or export. A progress bar shows the hand-off for big meshes.
Once a design is finished, two companion tools under Tools in the top menu take it further. Export your model as an STL first, then open it in either.
Both run entirely inside your browser — the original model is never uploaded. Full details are in the main guide.
Tick Public before saving to share a design. The Gallery page shows everyone's public designs with author and likes; Open loads any design into your editor as your own editable copy (a remix).
Make them your own: in the 3D Designer press ? (or File → Keyboard shortcuts) and click any key to change it: every action is there, the right-click menu's included, and every tool in the menus of the tool rail on the left (each under its menu's name). A key that is already in use moves to the new action after you say so, and Reset all brings the defaults back. Your keys are kept in your browser, and the right-click menu and the rail menus show each key next to its action.
5x or /5)