Paint Your Project in the 3D Preview

Now you can try out colors and stains right on the 3D product preview, one surface at a time, so you can see what your design will look like finished and on the bench long before you load a bit.

Why we built it

The 3D preview has always shown you the shape of your carve. Now it shows the finish too. Can't decide between a walnut stain and a coat of bright enamel? Wondering how a two-tone sign will actually read? Paint it, spin it around, and you'll know in a few seconds.

A few things it's good for:

• Planning a finish, so you can audition stains and paints before buying a single can.
• Showing a client or a family member what the finished piece will look like.
• Posting a painted preview to a project or the community and asking other makers what they'd do.

How to paint

1. Open your project and switch the 3D preview to Product Preview.
2. Click the brush icon to grab the paint tool.
3. Pick a color from the palette, or open the color picker for something custom.
4. Click a surface to fill it. Dragging still spins the model the way it always has, so clicks paint and drags orbit.

Hover over a surface first and you'll see the color before you commit to it.

A few tools to speed things up

• Paint by surface is the default. One click fills the whole connected flat region under your cursor — a face, a pocket floor, the top of a raised shape.
• Paint by depth fills every surface at the same depth in one click, so you can do all your pocket floors or all your raised tops at once.
• Opacity slider lets you ease off for a translucent stain that lets the grain show through, or crank it to 100% for solid coverage.
• Custom colors if the palette doesn't have the exact shade you're after.
• Eraser and Clear all to take back one surface or wipe the whole model and start over.

Share what you painted

Got a look you like? You can send it out without leaving the preview. Attach to project drops the painted view straight into your project's gallery images.

Good to know

Does painting change my design or my carve? No. It's purely visual — it never touches your toolpaths, your material, or the cut.

Will my colors be saved with the project? Not yet. Painted colors live in your current session and reset when the preview regenerates or you leave the project. Easel will remind you of this the first time you paint. If you want to hang on to a look, use the share buttons to save it as an image.

Can I paint any project? Painting works in the 2.5D workpiece Product Preview. If you're not sure a surface is paintable, hover over it — when the color preview shows up, you're good to go.

How do I stop painting? Click the brush icon again to put the tool down, or hit Esc. Dragging always orbits the camera, so you can step back and look at your work whenever you want.

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