Guide 1 of 3 · the studio

3Draw in the Studio

The studio doesn't hand you a pencil. It hands you a graph — a grid of blocks running across, up, and toward you. You draw by giving it something to build from: a word, an emoji, a photo, a shape. Then you take over and edit the blocks it built, one at a time or all at once.

01How the studio thinks

The studio: a column of folding panels on the left, the object on the right, page tabs along the top — The panels on the left fold open and closed. The object lives on the right. The tabs along the top lead back to this guide, the manual, and Play.

Everything you make sits on one grid. x runs left to right, y runs up, and z comes out of the screen toward you. Every block (a voxel) sits on a whole-number spot. That's what makes drawing possible: a block on the grid can be picked, recoloured, moved, scattered and put back.

Getting a good look

Panel: View / Telegraph Graph

Drag the object to turn it. Use the mouse wheel or pinch to zoom, or the Zoom slider.
Auto-rotate starts switched on. Switch it off while you work, so the object holds still under your cursor.
The ◀ ▶ ▲ ▼ buttons turn the object in steps, and Reset View brings it back to face you.
Grid lines, Grid points and X/Y/Z axes are your ruler and set square. Switch them on when placing blocks by hand.

02First mark: type it

Panel: Text → object

Type a letter, a word or an emoji in the box.
Press Generate Text Object. Pressing Ctrl/⌘ + Enter in the box does the same.
Drag to turn it. It's a solid now, with a front, sides and a back.

The characters 3 and D as voxel blocks, seen at an angle — `3D` — letters take the palette colour.

An octopus emoji built from voxel blocks — `🐙` — emoji keep their own colours.

Press Return in the box to stack lines. Text justify in the Structure / Seed / Text panel lines them up left, centre, right, or justified.

Type an equation here and you get the letters of the equation, not its graph. Graphs are drawn from the Graphing calculator panel — see 3Draw with Equations.

03Choose the look

Panel: Structure / Seed / Text → Typography

The word Draw in Georgia, coloured with a gradient from green to violet — `Draw` in Georgia, with True font silhouette mode and a gradient across the text.

Font family sets the typeface. Try Georgia for serifs or Impact for bulk.
True font silhouette mode draws letters at higher resolution so they follow the typeface closely. Raise True-font resolution for finer edges.
Palette across text paints the letters one colour, a gradient across the whole text, or one colour per character or per line.
Apply palette colors to emoji too recolours emoji to match the letters.
Palette picks the colour family. Custom color wheel builds a five-colour palette from one hue.

04Start from a shape

Drawing from life starts with simple solids, and so can the studio.

A green hexagonal prism — **Geometric shape quick-select** → Hexagonal prism.

A purple jellyfish with trailing tentacles — Style **Depict** with `jellyfish`, then **Render From Seed**.

Geometric shape quick-select (Structure panel, Typography) swaps in a solid: prisms from five to ten sides, a nonagonal pyramid on a platform, or a tetrahedron. Normal takes you back to your text.
Depict builds an object from a name. Set Style to Depict (object from text), type one of tree planet star comet jellyfish flower crystal mushroom snake tower butterfly ghost fish in the Text → object box, and press Render From Seed.

05Bring in a drawing

Panel: View / Telegraph Graph → Photo → relief object

Anything you draw by hand can come into the studio. Draw it, photograph it or scan it, and load the picture here.

A flat drawing: a red house with a brown door, green hills and a yellow sun — The flat drawing.

The same drawing as a thick relief block, turned to show its depth — Style **Relief (from photo)**, turned to show its depth.

Style → Relief (from photo) turns the picture into a colour relief. Solid makes a mould.
Image geometry wraps the picture onto a box, a cylinder, a sphere or a triangular pyramid.
Mirror image source flips it. Bubble / round display mode softens image solids into rounder forms.

Drawings with bold outlines and flat, distinct colours tend to come through cleanest. 3Draw on Paper covers how to draw the thing in the first place.

06Draw block by block

Panel: View / Telegraph Graph → Telegraph — Voxel Graph

This is the studio's pencil. You pick blocks and change them: colour, place and size. Every edit stays on the grid.

A voxel sphere painted yellow with dark eyes and a smile — A sphere from the calculator, painted in two passes. First **Select All** and pick yellow. Then clear the selection, tap the eyes and the smile, and pick dark brown.

Build something to work on. For a blank ball, open Graphing calculator, type x^2+y^2+z^2 = 144, and press Plot graph.
Switch Auto-rotate off and switch Select mode (tap voxels) on.
Tap a block to select it. Tap it again to let go. A short tap selects; a drag still turns the view. Select All takes every block, and pressing it again (it now reads Clear Selection) drops them all.
Paint: choose a colour in Selected voxel color. The selected blocks take it at once.
Move: the X− X+ Y− Y+ Z− Z+ buttons shift the selection one grid step at a time. A moved block keeps its new home, even through scramble and Snap.
Resize: Shrink 0.8×, Grow 1.25× and Reset 1.0× scale the selection around its own centre. Bubble selected in the Graph spread panel rounds it off.

The colour applies the moment the picker changes. To give a new selection the colour you just used, nudge the picker slightly and back.

Turn the object as you go. Painting a face is flat work; painting all the way round a ball is 3D drawing.

07Draw with light

Panel: Light Settings · or the amber Light Settings button at the top

A yellow voxel ball lit orange from the left with a lens flare, circled by a green and a pink streak of light — An orange lamp with a flare, a blue lamp from the right, and two streaks drawn with the ball turned between strokes.

Light is what makes a shape read as 3D, on paper or on screen. This panel lets you place the lamps yourself, and even draw with light in the air around the object.

Press Adjust Lighting — enter. Lamp figures appear, aimed at the object, and a metal reference cube sits in the middle so you can judge the light. The camera can now zoom further in and out.
Pick a lamp: Key lamp, Rim lamp, Ambient wash, or Add lamp for up to as many spotlights as you like. Set Brightness, Lamp color, Azimuth (around), Elevation (up and down) and Distance. Lens flare on this lamp adds a glow.
Draw streaks — on: now a drag paints a glowing line instead of turning the object. Choose Streak color and Width first.
Switch drawing off, turn the object, switch it back on and draw again. Each stroke lands on a flat sheet facing you, so strokes drawn from different angles build a real 3D shape in the air. Undo takes back the last stroke; Clear all wipes them.
Exit adjust mode. The lamp figures hide; their light stays. The first six streaks also cast coloured light of their own.

For grounded shadows, tick Floor — catches object shadows in the View / Telegraph Graph panel. Lamps, flares, streaks and the floor show in PNG and GIF exports. They never enter 3D mesh files.

The shading rules in 3Draw on Paper apply here too. A lamp that's high and to one side, plus a dim rim lamp behind, is the classic setup.

08Shape the whole thing

Procedural styles

Panel: Structure / Seed / Text

A mirror-symmetric lattice of glowing green and violet lines — Style **Lattice** with **Symmetry (kaleidoscope folds)** on.

Lattice, Orbs, Crystal and Solid grow a structure from a seed. The Fold count, Segment density and Depth spread sliders shape it. Render From Seed builds it.

Symmetry (kaleidoscope folds) mirrors it. Deterministic means the same seed always gives the same object, so you can find one you like and get it back.

Spread, scatter, put back

Panel: Graph spread / object volume · and Entropy scramble in View / Telegraph Graph

Object volume swells or shrinks the object. Blowout pushes characters out from the centre. Scatter separates whole pieces. Jumble swaps their places. Randomize turns them.
Every slider works from the original, so pulling it back to zero puts everything back. Reset spread does it in one go.
Entropy scramble strews blocks across the graph from 0% to 100%, and back. Snap returns them to the grid.

09Draw in time

Panels: Motion over time / GIF export · Turn recorder / animated GIF

Morph between drawings. Type a word or emoji in each text field (+ Text field adds more), press Build text sequence, then ▶ Play. Capture current object adds whatever is on screen, block edits included. Set Seconds per transition and Interpolation, then Export motion GIF.
Record your hand. Press ● Record, turn and zoom the object, press ■ Stop, then Export GIF. The GIF replays the movement you made.

10Keep it

Panel: Import / Export / Packaging

You want…	Export as
a picture to post	PNG. Tick Transparent background to drop it onto anything.
a 3D print	STL or 3MF. For a flat base, tick Floor support in the Connectables panel first.
a model for other 3D apps	GLB, glTF, OBJ or PLY (PLY keeps block colours).
something only one person can open	Sealed VOBJ — see the To / From panel.

11Five warm-ups

1 · Your initial, three waysType your initial. Build it in Georgia, then Impact, then Georgia with True font silhouette mode. Turn each one sideways and compare the edges.
2 · Emoji shelfType three emoji on three lines, set Text justify to Center, and turn the stack until it reads as one object.
3 · Smiley ballPlot x^2+y^2+z^2 = 144 and paint a face on it. Then turn it round and give it a second face on the back.
4 · Paper to reliefDraw a house with a thick marker, photograph it, and load it as a Relief. Turn it until the roof casts a shadow on the wall.
5 · Ring of lightPut one warm lamp high on the left. Draw a streak around the middle of your object, turn it a quarter, and draw another. Record a turn and export the GIF.