Sign up — install nothing
HelioCad runs entirely in your browser. Designing needs nothing installed — no license dongle, no operating-system lock-in; if you have a modern browser on macOS, Windows, Linux, or ChromeOS, you can design. (One optional exception: driving laser hardware your browser can't reach directly uses the free HelioCAD Bridge app — see the HelioCAD Bridge doc.)
Create an account with an email address and you land straight in a workspace. HelioCad Pro includes every feature, so you can build, simulate, and export real parts right away.
- Works in Chrome, Edge, Firefox, and Safari — Chromium browsers are recommended for the fastest viewport.
- No admin rights or IT ticket required — nothing is installed on the machine.
- Your work syncs to the cloud automatically, so you can pick up on any computer.
Tip: Using a laptop with a discrete GPU? Keep it plugged in — the viewport and path-traced renderer will run noticeably faster on the high-performance graphics profile.
Workspace tour
HelioCad's interface is a Spatial HUD: the 3D viewport fills the window and everything else floats over it in glass. At the top left, the File pill holds the document name and the File menu, with undo and redo beside it. Under it, the mode dial switches between amber Design (Model, Reverse Engineer, Assembly, Simulate, Drawing and Render), blue Manufacturing (Fixtures, Manufacture, Laser, 3D Printing, Mold Making and Customize) and green Electronics (Schematic and PCB): hover a segment and a drum of workspace cards unrolls, each with a line on what it is for and whether HelioAI builds, assists or stays out of it. ⌘1 through ⌘9 jump straight to the first nine. Find anything (⌘K, or the button at the top right) searches every tool in every workspace, so any command is a few keystrokes away.
In the Model workspace the tools sit in the dock along the bottom: glass capsules for Pinned ★, Sketch, Create, Modify, Sculpt, Surface, Inspect, Make, Parts, View and AI. Click a capsule for its tiles. The Features lane on the left lists every step of the part, with a filmstrip of the same steps above the dock, and the view puck at the bottom right holds the view cube with Fit, Home, Measure and Section. HelioAI lives in the AI orb at the top right: type or speak a request there, and when you select something the orb moves beside it with suggestions for that selection. Every workspace has its own dock and the orb, so you can describe a change in plain language whether you are sketching, meshing an FEA study, or setting up a toolpath.
- Viewport — orbit with the right mouse button, pan with the middle button, and zoom with the scroll wheel.
- Features lane — every feature you create is a step you can reorder, edit, suppress, or roll back to.
- AI orb — type or speak a request; HelioCad generates the CAD code, runs it, and updates the model.
- Right-click — a radial menu with the tools for what you picked and HelioAI in the centre.
- Customize (⚙ at the top right) — move the dock, choose the radial's tools, pin tools and rebind keys, saved as presets on your account.
- Projects manager — rename or duplicate a project (the copy is suffixed “(copy)”), delete it, organize projects into folders, and restore an earlier version.
Your first model
The fastest way to make something is to ask for it. Click the AI orb at the top right (it asks What shall we make?) and describe the part — for example, a 60 mm cube with a 20 mm through-hole on the top face. HelioCad writes the parametric model, executes it, and renders a fully editable solid you can keep refining by asking or by hand.
Prefer to drive it yourself? Start a sketch on a plane, draw a profile with the constraint solver, and extrude it into a solid. Every operation you run — by asking HelioAI or with a tool from the dock — lands in the Features lane as an editable step.
Tip: You do not have to choose between AI and manual modeling. A common workflow is to let the AI rough in the geometry, then fine-tune dimensions and add fillets by hand.
Saving and autosave
HelioCad autosaves continuously. There is no Save button to forget — your project is persisted to the cloud as you work, and you can close the tab and return later to exactly where you left off.
Projects are versioned, so experimenting is safe. Click an earlier step in the Features lane to roll back and inspect or branch from a previous state without losing your current work.
- Autosave runs in the background — no manual saving required.
- Open a project on any device; your account carries your work with you.
- Export a local copy anytime in STEP, STL, or another open format — your designs are always yours.
Ready to try it yourself?
Everything in this guide works in your browser, with no install. HelioCad Pro includes every feature.