Design microfluidic chips in your browser and print them on a desktop resin printer.
Draw a channel network, size every channel, add standard fittings, check it against your printer, estimate the flow, and export a print-ready STL. It runs entirely in your browser, with no account, no server and no network connection needed.
Open the app → · Documentation · Website
- Draw channel networks with straight and curved (bezier) segments, snapping and millimetre rulers. Set a channel's width and height anywhere along it and it tapers smoothly between them, across a whole path if you like.
- Ports and fittings from a catalogue: Luer slip and Luer-lock sockets, male Luer cones, hose barbs, syringe sockets, or your own dimensions.
- A real 3D model, built in the browser with manifold-3d. Print it as two pieces (a channel plate and a lid), as one sealed block, or as an open plate capped with a glass microscope slide.
- Design checks against your printer. Channels below your printer's resolution, walls too thin to survive, features too close to the edge, trapped resin, unsupported overhangs. Every check is a warning that explains the risk; none of them ever blocks an export.
- Flow estimates from a one-dimensional network model: pressure drop, Reynolds number, wall shear, residence time, heat exchange between neighbouring channels, reagent use and throughput, with heatmaps.
- Export STL for printing, editable OpenSCAD source, SVG schematics, and presentation-ready figures.
- Starter templates: serpentine, T- and Y-junction, herringbone and spiral mixers, a gradient generator, and a droplet generator, each fully editable.
- Design with AI: describe a chip in plain English and an AI assistant with
the
openchip-designskill lays it out, checks it and hands back a file to open. Works with the Claude app and with coding agents (npx skills add Jujified/OpenChip). OpenChip itself sends nothing anywhere.
The quickest way is the hosted app at app.openchip.tech. Nothing you draw leaves your machine.
Open the Library tab and pick a template, or open
examples/counter-flow-exchanger.openchip
with Project → Open Project. Press ? anywhere for keyboard shortcuts, or
take the guided tour from Settings → Take the tour.
Your working design is kept in browser storage as a safety net. To keep a design
or move it between machines, save it as a .openchip file.
Requires Node 20.19 or newer.
git clone https://github.com/Jujified/OpenChip.git
cd OpenChip
npm install
npm run dev| Script | Does |
|---|---|
npm run dev |
Start the dev server |
npm run build |
Typecheck, then build static files into dist/ |
npm test |
Run the test suite |
npm run lint |
Lint with oxlint |
npm run typecheck |
Typecheck without emitting |
The build is plain static files, so any static host works. See ARCHITECTURE.md for how the editor, CAD engine, design checks and flow model are put together.
OpenChip is a design tool, not a guarantee. The design checks are geometric rules of thumb against a printer profile you enter, and resin, exposure and post-curing all move the result. Print a small test coupon before committing to a full chip. The flow estimates assume fully developed laminar flow and perfect mixing at junctions; they size a chip and catch an unusable design, but they are not a CFD simulation. Printed Luer fittings follow nominal ISO 80369-7 dimensions and are not certified connectors; do not use them in anything clinical.
If OpenChip designed a device that appears in your work, please cite the
software and the version you used. The DOI is
10.5281/zenodo.23461556, and GitHub's
Cite this repository button gives the details from
CITATION.cff.
@software{openchip,
title = {OpenChip: browser-based microfluidic chip design for resin printing},
author = {Cimoca, Julian},
year = {2026},
version = {1.0.0},
doi = {10.5281/zenodo.23461556},
url = {https://openchip.tech}
}- Flui3d (Zhang et al., Communications Engineering, 2024) is the closest relative: a web-based design platform for 3D-printed microfluidic chips. It builds devices from a parameterised component library, supports multi-layer designs, and corrects geometry for light penetration during printing. OpenChip instead draws freeform channel networks and focuses on printability checks, flow estimates and standard fittings, entirely client-side.
- 3DμF is an interactive design environment for continuous-flow microfluidic devices.
Bug reports, ideas and pull requests are welcome. See CONTRIBUTING.md. The documentation site and the website are maintained separately from this repository.
Created by Julian Cimoca (ORCID 0009-0009-8978-5337). Developed with AI coding assistance (Claude); design, direction and validation by the author.
The author collaborated with, and received advice from, mentor Walker MacSwain (ORCID 0000-0002-2671-2546), who also helped validate the software.
Released under the MIT License.