Skip to content
PrintPort3DDocs
DocsStudio

The Workbench

The three-pane workspace where a Studio design becomes a saved, priced, print-ready product.

6 min read

The Workbench is where every Studio project opens, whether it began as a chat prompt, a template, or an AI-generated mesh. The left pane refines the design through chat. The center pane renders it in 3D. The right pane sets the material and shows a live printability and price check. This page covers each pane in order and ends with saving the design to your library as a product.

Refining a design uses Studio credits

Each refinement spends Studio credits from your platform balance. A run that never produces a design is refunded automatically.

Overview

Open a project from the Studio page and it fills the screen as three panes, each with a distinct purpose.

Refine chatleft
A chat box for describing the design or requesting a change. Messages can be up to 2,000 characters. Press Enter to send and Shift+Enter for a new line. Sending dispatches a design job. The Send button is disabled while a job is running or the box is empty. Below the box, a live feed titled “How this design was reached” shows each step the engine takes: Plan, Looked it up, Compiled, Measured, Reviewed, and Done. See Describe a design for the full authoring loop.
Live 3D viewportcenter
A rotatable 3D view of the current design over a 256 mm print-bed grid. Drag to rotate, scroll to zoom, and right-drag to pan.
The railright
Parameters, material and color, and the Printability & price receipt: everything you measure and cost the design against.

The Workbench streams updates as the engine works. Chat replies, authoring progress, code changes, and finished renders each appear as they complete. The design job runs on our print worker rather than in your browser, so a run can take some time. You can leave the tab and return; when a design lands, you receive a notification.

The live viewport

The center pane shows the design as it takes shape. While the engine authors, each draft it compiles streams into the viewport with a pulsing Live draft · step N badge, so you watch the design converge in real time.

New projects never show a blank plate

A new project starts from an empty starter plate internally, but the viewport never displays it. Until something real compiles, the viewport reads “Describe something to see it here,” and your first chat message is treated as a fresh design rather than an edit of a blank cube.

Assembled and print-plate views

Some designs separate into pieces that print flat and clip together afterward. When a design carries an assembled/print-plate switch, a toggle appears on the viewport.

Assembleddefault
The finished product, put together the way the customer will hold it.
Print plate
The same design laid flat on the bed, exactly as it comes off the printer.

STL exports always contain the print plate

The STL button downloads the print plate every time, even while the viewport shows the Assembled view. The plate is what actually prints, so it is what you export. The STL button stays disabled until the design has rendered at least once.

When a design has more than one piece, its chat reply states so directly, for example “Prints as 3 separate pieces.” That count is checked against the actual mesh, so you know in advance whether a design requires assembly. When you list it, you choose whether we assemble it ($1.00 per part) or ship the pieces loose.

Reading the printability and price receipt

After each render, the Printability & price panel on the rail reports whether the design can be made and roughly what it costs. It has two parts.

Printability

Measured size
The design’s real bounding box in millimetres, shown as x × y × z and measured from the render rather than entered by hand.
Watertight or check seams
Whether the mesh reads as a single sealed solid, or carries seams worth a second look.
Bed fit
The viewport grid represents a 256 mm bed. If any side exceeds 255 mm, the rail shows an Exceeds the 255mm bed warning, and a design over the bed cannot be saved until you ask chat to shrink it.

Material, color, and price

Select a filament from the material dropdown and a color swatch. Both are drawn from live inventory, so you see the materials we currently stock: PLA Basic, PLA Matte, PLA Silk, PLA Glow, PETG Translucent, ABS, and TPU 90A. Choosing a color recolors the model in the viewport and re-prices the design. The make cost stays hidden, shown as “Pick a material color for the full make cost,” until you select a priced color.

Once a color is set, the receipt shows an approximate weight, print time, and make cost.

Material — ≈ 32 g PLA Basic≈ $1.60
Labor — ≈ 1.6 print-hours × $3≈ $4.80
Make cost (estimate — exact on save)≈ $6.40

The receipt is an estimate until you save

Every line on this receipt is tagged Estimate — exact on save and is a live preview. When you save the design to your library, we run the real slice and lock in the exact make cost. Make cost is what PrintPort charges your card to produce one unit, covering material plus labor, and is never a payout to you. The full breakdown is in Costs & pricing, and stocked filaments are listed in Materials & colors.

Parameters and the code editor

Whether the rail shows sliders depends on how the design was made, and this is intentional.

AI designs expose no dials because the engine verified exactly one configuration of them.

Design sourceParameters railHow to change it
Template or hand-editedLive sliders, inputs, checkboxes, dropdownsDrag a slider — it re-renders and re-prices after a short pause
AI-designed (from chat)No sliders — a note pointing you to chatAsk for the change in the refine chat
  • Template or hand-edited
    Parameters rail
    Live sliders, inputs, checkboxes, dropdowns
    How to change it
    Drag a slider — it re-renders and re-prices after a short pause
  • AI-designed (from chat)
    Parameters rail
    No sliders — a note pointing you to chat
    How to change it
    Ask for the change in the refine chat

When a template design has dials, each change waits about 0.7 seconds after you stop, then re-renders and re-prices automatically. An AI-designed model shows no dials, because the engine proved only one exact configuration is sound. To change such a design, describe the change in chat and let the engine re-author it.

Editing the code restores the sliders

The header has a Code button that opens the raw OpenSCAD. Edit it and select Apply code, and the design becomes hand-authored, which restores its parameter sliders. Apply re-checks the code in our sandbox and re-renders. It is disabled until you have changed something. The Code button is hidden for Generate-source projects.

Every author, apply, and restore is recorded in version history. The header button shows the count and opens a row of v1 v2 restore buttons, so you can roll back to any earlier state, up to the last 20.

Saving a design to your library

Saving copies the render into your Catalog as a real model, starts the production slice, and lets you turn the design into a product. Select the molten Save to library button in the header. Several conditions must be met first.

  1. 1

    Verify your email

    Save-to-library requires a verified email and nothing else. If yours is not confirmed you will see “Verify your email before saving designs.” Shippo, a linked store, and a payment card are not required — they gate taking the resulting product live and producing orders. See Create your account.
  2. 2

    Render the design at least once

    Save needs a valid render to copy. Before one exists, or if you attempt to save a blank project, you will be prompted to “render the design first.” Any chat, parameter, or material change produces a render.
  3. 3

    Fit the bed

    Every side must be 255 mm or under. A design that triggers the Exceeds the 255mm bed warning cannot be saved. Ask chat to scale it down, then save.
  4. 4

    Save

    The header switches to In your library, and the Save button is replaced by a Make it a product link to your Catalog.

A saved design is a first-class Catalog model

Once saved, the design behaves like any other model in your Catalog. It slices, it prices, and it can be built into a product with a SKU. Saving does not charge your card; your card is charged the make cost only when an order is produced. Deleting the design later clears its chat and version history but keeps any product you already built from it.

Next steps

Renders & product photosTurn the design in your viewport into listing-ready photos, directly from the Workbench.Create a productTake a saved design to a priced product with a SKU you can list.Describe a designThe refine chat in full: how to request changes and read the step feed.Studio creditsWhat each design action costs, the welcome gift, and automatic refunds.