Frequently Asked Questions

Text-to-CAD is ML for CAD that allows users to submit a text prompt which describes a design to Zoo Design Studio, which outputs an accurate B-rep CAD model along with parametric KCL code.

Text-to-CAD enables 3D modeling via prompts in natural language. You can seamlessly switch between Text-to-CAD, traditional (point-and-click) modeling, and code-CAD in the Zoo Design Studio.

Anyone can use Text-to-CAD, whether you are an experienced maker, or someone with no design experience.

Text-to-CAD is tuned to generate mechanical components for real world manufacturing processes, such as CNC milling and 3D printing.

Text-to-CAD produces fully editable, parametric KCL code, in which every detail can be edited. To edit a model that you generate with Text-to-CAD, you can use Zoo Design Studio's point-and-click interface or use Text-to-CAD again (Edit with ML) to further refine your model with a text prompt.

Text-to-CAD supports detailed design documents up to 1,500 words, as well as short, vague prompts, in which case the ML will complete any missing details and dimensions based on industry standards.

Sign up and start using Text-to-CAD for free today, click here to get started.

• The maximum prompt length is a few thousand words. Longer prompts take longer to respond.
• Shorter prompts, 1-2 sentences in length, succeed more often than longer prompts.
• If your prompt omits important dimensions, Text-to-CAD will make its best guess, based on industry standards, to fill in missing details.
• Traditional, simple mechanical parts work best right now—fasteners, bearings, connectors, etc.
• The same prompt can generate different results when submitted multiple times. Sometimes a failing prompt will succeed on the next attempt, and vice versa.

Text-to-CAD generates CAD models via KCL, an open-source parametric CAD programming language developed by Zoo. KCL can be edited in Zoo Design Studio, or in the text editor or IDE of your choice. Users can export KCL into the following standard CAD formats. Be advised that the feature tree from Zoo Design Studio will not be preserved:

• STEP
• STL
• OBJ
• glTF
• PLY

Most simple parts are generated in seconds, assemblies can take a few minutes.

Enterprises who are interested in customizing and training Text-to-CAD on their own data should contact Zoo Sales by filling out our contact form.

Though we are constantly improving Text-to-CAD, it can fail to generate a valid geometry for your prompt. This does not necessarily mean that there is a problem with the prompt. For vague prompts, try resubmitting for different results.

Text-to-CAD will infer any missing details and dimensions in ambiguous prompts.

There are several steps you can take to improve your results with Text-to-CAD:

• Iterate on the model with Text-to-CAD using the "Modify with Zoo Text-to-CAD" tool in Zoo Design Studio
• Manually edit the model with KCL or with traditional modeling tools in Zoo Design Studio
• Try adjusting your prompt to address specific issues, and then resubmit For help, check out our Community Page or join our Discord.

Text-to-CAD is built on top of the Zoo CAD Engine and KCL programming language for CAD. It leverages Zoo's MLephant API.

Text-to-CAD natively outputs to KCL, an open-source parametric code CAD language from Zoo. KCL can be exported into the following standard B-rep formats. Be advised that the feature tree from Zoo Design Studio will not be preserved:

• STEP
• STL
• OBJ
• glTF
• PLY

We retain telemetry and API data which is transmitted securely and encrypted at rest. Generated CAD models are retained only on customer machines, except for cases where customers opt-in to training. Data stored for training is anonymized and contains no customer information.

Users who are on Free accounts cannot opt out of having their data potentially included in training. Users on any paid subscription tier can opt out.

Text-to-CAD and Zoo Design Studio are free! Sign up and start using Text-to-CAD within Zoo Design Studio. Free plans are limited to using 40 Text-to-CAD credits per month, but all paid plans unlock unlimited Text-to-CAD.

Please review our pricing page for further information.

Once you have a free Zoo account, go to your account page to upgrade to any of our paid plans and get unlimited Text-to-CAD.

Stay tuned for gradual updates to Text-to-CAD like:

• Support for generating more complex assemblies
• An in-app conversational ML CAD Assistant
• Image-to-CAD
• STL/STEP-to-CAD
• …and much more!

Text-to-CAD receives frequent updates. Typically we release on a weekly cadence.

Browse in-depth Text-to-CAD tutorials and documentation here.

Absolutely. Join us on our Community Page or join our Discord.

We consider all suggestions, reported bugs, and issues on our Community Page.

Zoo Design Studio is a CAD application for hardware designers that provides the traditional point-and-click workflows found in common CAD applications, alongside Text-to-CAD ML and code based workflows.

Zoo Design Studio is best used by downloading and installing our native desktop applications. There is a web browser test environment but it is not recommended for up-to-date functionality.

Visit our downloads page to install the desktop application.

Zoo Design Studio is available for free but also has paid tiers for professionals, teams, and enterprises. You can view our pricing here.

No. Zoo Design Studio is CAD software that anyone can use and download for free. There are paid subscription tiers that unlock more powerful features and capabilities, like unlimited Text-to-CAD credits and support for teams and enterprises. Visit our pricing page for more details.

Yes. Zoo Design Studio requires an internet connection because processing and our geometry engine run in the cloud. This lets you handle complex CAD workflows smoothly, even on low-powered machines.

Zoo Design Studio has solid modeling features like extrude, revolve, sweep, booleans, etc. For a full list of features, visit our documentation.

Yes. Assemblies are supported in Zoo Design Studio as of v1.0.

We constantly ship updates to Zoo Design Studio. We do not currently follow a scheduled release cadence—this allows us to release exciting features and bug fixes as quickly as we can.

These are the current file types that are compatible with Zoo Design Studio:

• STEP/STP
• SLDPRT
• KCL
• STL
• glTF/GLB
• OBJ
• FBX
• PLY

You can export your project into the following file types:

• STEP
• STL
• glTF
• OBJ
• PLY
• FBX

Please see our Text-to-CAD documentation.

The Text-to-CAD button ✨ is in the main toolbar within Zoo Design Studio. Once you click it, you can type a description of the design you want Text-to-CAD to generate. It typically takes seconds to generate designs but the time will vary based on the complexity of your prompt. Most Text-to-CAD models are generated in under 60 seconds.

40 Text-to-CAD credits are included on Free plans. The 40 credits reset every month on the first. One Text-to-CAD credit is equivalent to approximately one minute of API usage. Around 90% of Text-to-CAD prompts are less than one minute, so most Text-to-CAD prompts will cost just one credit.

For using Text-to-CAD outside of Zoo Design Studio, please refer to our pricing page for more information regarding Text-to-CAD pricing per API call.

No. If you receive a failure (a 422 error code, for example), you will not be charged credits. However, if your prompt succeeds—even if it wasn't exactly what you were expecting—your account will be charged the associated number of credits.

KCL (KittyCAD Language) is Zoo's own scripting language for describing CAD geometries and rendering them within Zoo Design Studio. Every CAD function in Zoo Design Studio generates KCL. Using KCL in Zoo Design Studio is completely optional and is not required. KCL allows designers to leverage the benefits of code in the CAD ecosystem.

No! Coding with KCL (Zoo's CAD coding language) is completely optional. However, it can be quite powerful. If your curiosity gets the best of you, you can learn more about getting started with KCL for coding in CAD Community Page.

Yes, the Zoo Design Studio application is open source and you can find it on GitHub. However, our CAD geometry engine is not open source.

Check out our developer documentation to get started designing your own modeling tools.

For assistance, check out our Community Page! See if others have asked for help with the same thing and if not, make a new topic so we can help you. Users who are on a paid plan can use email support or submit a support ticket here if they are logged in.

There are a few places you can report a bug. You can report it on our Community Page, you can let us know on our Discord, or if you are familiar with GitHub, you can make an issue for us.

Updates will download automatically the next time you open Zoo Design Studio. Once the update is complete, you will need to restart your application for it to take affect.

You can use our Community Page to see if someone else has requested the same thing. If no one has, make a new request using the feature category.

The Free Plan includes full access to Zoo Design Studio, however, Text-to-CAD usage is limited to 40 credits per month and Zoo may use your data to improve our products. You can get unlimited Text-to-CAD credits (and opt out of having your data used to improve our products) by upgrading to any of our paid plans!

We do! You can pay month-to-month and contact us to cancel any time. If you opt for an annual plan, you get a 20% discount in exchange for paying upfront and remaining committed to that plan for an entire year.

We accept credit cards for all paid plans. For Team or Enterprise plans, if you need custom billing, please contact us.

Yes, you can always upgrade or downgrade your plan to another tier without losing your data.

Yes, we will apply the remaining number of days on your monthly plan towards the annual plan's price at checkout.

Check out our documentation and tutorials to learn more. Free users can access our Community Support Forum or join our Discord server for additional support.

On the Free Plan, Text-to-CAD credits are capped at 40 per month. Text-to-CAD credits reset on the first of every month. If you go over 40 in a given month, you won't be able to use Text-to-CAD again until the first day of the following month, or you can upgrade to any of our paid plans and get unlimited Text-to-CAD!

Please contact us to discuss pricing and features for your company. We will work with you to craft a plan that optimizes value and works best to fit your goals.

If you're an enterprise user, we'd love to learn more about your custom workflows. Please contact us so we can discuss.

Yes! This is extremely powerful and can provide significant value for organizations with large CAD operations. Contact our team to learn more about how we can help.

Zoo is in the process of obtaining SOC2 Type II certification (expected by Q4 2025). Zoo adheres to industry standards for safeguarding your data.

Zoo offers a full suite of APIs that can connect to any platform. Please refer to our developer documentation for more information.

API calls are charged by the minute, rounded up to the nearest minute. Each minute cost $0.50. For example, let's say you tried the following endpoint ai/text-to-cad/{output_format} and it took 75 seconds to complete. Since it is rounded up to the next minute, this would be charged for 2 minutes. $0.50/minute x 2 minutes = $1.00

All users get $20.00 worth of API calls per month for free. After that, it is pay-as-you-go pricing.

All of our charged API calls cost $0.50 per minute.

No, you are not charged if the API call fails.

No, only POST API calls.

Text-to-CAD generations can vary in their duration. It depends on the complexity of your prompt. A large majority of Text-to-CAD API calls last between 10 - 30 seconds. However, they can last minutes if the prompt is long and complex.

Yes. We are working on our machine learning endpoints every day, but it is still experimental. Some results may not be as good as you expect.

Text-to-CAD includes a STEP file and can optionally output KCL as well with every call. For any other file format, you will be charged for the file conversion API used.

For assistance with APIs, you can ask a question on our Community Page or discuss on our Discord!

For bugs, mention it to us on our Community Page.

Please email us directly. We would love to chat with your specific needs and see how we can best help you.