Before you start
Trellis Studio is the desktop application built on top of the trellis.cpp pipeline. It is the shortest route from an image to a local textured 3D asset on hardware that the Python stacks struggle with, and it keeps everything on the machine. This guide covers what it does, what it does not do, and where its outputs need checking.
Prerequisites
- A supported Windows or Linux machine with a working GPU driver
- Disk space for the weights plus a growing local gallery
- An installer or portable archive from the project's own release page
- A separate viewer or inspector for checking exported geometry
Step by step
Install from the release page
The project publishes installers and portable archives for Windows and Linux, alongside one-command installers that detect the GPU runtime. Download only from the release page and verify the published checksum.
Set the generation options deliberately
The interface exposes voxel resolution, seed, background-removal method and UV unwrap style. Change one at a time. Resolution is the setting that moves memory use and runtime most, and the seed is what makes a result reproducible later.
Use the preview as triage, not as approval
The built-in interactive preview is good enough to reject a bad generation quickly. It is not a substitute for inspecting the exported file's triangle count, material channels and alpha behaviour before the asset goes anywhere.
Treat the gallery as working storage
The local gallery is a convenience layer stored by the application, not an archive. Copy anything you intend to keep into your own project structure with the input image, seed and settings recorded alongside it.
Known trade-offs
- The desktop app is a front end over a community reimplementation, not official Microsoft software
- A local gallery held by the application is not a backup; export and archive what matters
- Quantized weights chosen for speed will show in texture detail before they show in geometry
- Generated assets still carry the upstream model's licence terms regardless of which front end produced them