In one embodiment of the invention, a robotic surgical system includes a master control console having a stereo viewer to view stereo images; a surgical manipulator having a stereo endoscopic camera coupled to a robotic arm to generate the stereo images of a surgical site; a stereo telestration device coupled between the stereo endoscopic camera and the stereo viewer to mix telestration graphics and the stereo images of the surgical site together for viewing by the stereo viewer; and a telestration generator coupled to the stereo telestration device to generate the telestration graphics for overlay on the stereo images of the surgical site.