The interface, briefly
Four tabs, one top bar, and a warnings panel that follows you between two of them.
The top bar
Section titled “The top bar”Left to right: the wordmark, Project, Settings, and the project name with its save state beside it. On the right, links to the OpenChip home page and this wiki, then Design with AI, Present, Save, and a gear for project settings. The chevron on Save opens Save and Save a Copy… — a copy is named from the project name and leaves your next Save pointed at the file you already had open.
Design with AI opens a dialog for describing a chip to an AI assistant instead of drawing it. It is in the Project menu too, as Design with AI…. See Generating a chip with AI.
The dot beside the project name is the honest one: green and “Saved to …openchip” means it is on disk, and anything else means it is only in browser storage.
Where the design happens.
| Region | What is in it |
|---|---|
| Toolbar | Select / Draw / Dimension, undo and redo, the snapping toggles, grid and width preview. |
| Rulers | Millimetres, with the origin at the chip’s bottom-left. |
| Canvas | The chip outline, the dashed edge-clearance line, your channels, and a cursor readout in the bottom-right corner. On an empty chip, a hint in the middle names the three ways to start: draw with P, open a template, or Design with AI. It goes away once the design has a node. |
| Inspector (right) | Whatever is selected, then the drawing tools — Position centers the design or the selection. Nothing selected shows the tool hints and a Select all channels button. |
| Design checks (bottom) | Collapsible. Follows you to CAD Preview. |
Tools are V, P, D. The full list is in Keyboard shortcuts.
CAD Preview
Section titled “CAD Preview”The solid, and the parameters that shape it.
| Region | What is in it |
|---|---|
| Toolbar | Solid / Wireframe / X-ray, Isolate in X-ray, Explode, Fit, Top / Front / Right, Persp / Ortho. |
| Viewport | Drag to orbit, scroll to zoom, right-drag to pan. The grid is the build plate. |
| Panel (right) | Chip dimensions, split type and height, and the export block. |
| Design checks (bottom) | The same panel as in Draw. |
X-ray is the mode to reach for when something is wrong — it shows the channel network through the block. Isolate, which appears with it, drops the block entirely and shows the fluid path on its own, opaque or transparent. See The 3D preview.
Explode separates the two halves of a two-piece chip so you can see the bonding faces, or lifts the glass off a glass-slide chip. It is disabled on a monolithic chip, which has nothing to separate.
Fluid Dynamics
Section titled “Fluid Dynamics”Estimates, and the run you are estimating.
| Region | What is in it |
|---|---|
| Toolbar | The metric — Pressure, Reynolds, Temperature, Residence, Shear — plus the table toggle and heatmap export. |
| Canvas | The network, coloured by the chosen metric, with a legend. |
| Table (bottom) | Per-segment numbers, and the heat exchange table below it. |
| Panel (right) | Ports and fluids: which port is an inlet, what is flowing, how fast, how hot. |
The summary strip along the top of the toolbar carries the figures worth glancing at — segment count, peak Reynolds, maximum pressure, internal volume, transit time.
The note along the bottom states what the model is. It is there on every view of this tab on purpose.
Library
Section titled “Library”Seven starter templates with previews drawn from their real geometry. Search, filter by category, click one for a closer look, open it as a new project. A Describe a chip card leads the grid and opens Design with AI. It steps aside while you search or filter.
Each detail view carries the template’s caveat where it has one — what this recreation does and does not capture. Read it before you build on the template. Where a template has references, they’re listed under Based on, with a DOI link where there is one. See Templates.
The Design checks panel
Section titled “The Design checks panel”Docked to the bottom of Draw and CAD Preview, so the same list is there wherever you are working.
Collapsed, it shows counts by severity and the line “advisory only — nothing here blocks an export”. Expanded, it lists every finding with the measured value and the limit, plus a Thresholds sidebar for the three settings you control.
Clicking a warning selects what it is about and centers the view on it — in either tab, and the highlight persists when you switch.
Settings
Section titled “Settings”Settings → Printer for the printer profile. Settings → Take the tour to replay the first-run walkthrough. The guided tour marks itself seen the moment it starts rather than when it finishes, so leaving halfway is respected as a decision.