Visual Reference & Planning Board inside Blender
I often find myself juggling multiple external programs (PureRef, Miro, image viewers, note apps) just to keep references, test renders, and planning materials organized. It feels fragmented and makes it harder to stay focused in Blender.
What I’m proposing is a dedicated Reference & Planning Board editor inside Blender:
A canvas-like window where you can add images, text, arrows, and other elements.
Quick, straightforward tools to drop in renders, screenshots, or assets directly from Blender.
Organize everything visually, in one place, without leaving the program.
This wouldn’t just be a “reference image tool.” It could evolve into a general-purpose space for planning, visualization, and communication inside Blender. Think of it like a built-in whiteboard / Miro / Milanote, but fully integrated:
Collect and arrange references and moodboards.
Annotate test renders and iterations.
Build mind maps, shot breakdowns, and storyboards.
Present ideas directly in Blender without switching apps.
The long-term vision is simple: planning, visualizing, and organizing entire projects inside Blender — from the first idea to the final render — all without leaving the software.
6 Comments
Would be great to have a simplified figma board in there
Sounds like using Blender for all its tools combined. Have you thought of using a second instance and trying it out as a planner while working in the main open file? If you only have a single screen then it could be a problem, but it would be a problem even if it were a new editor type in a single instance as you'd have to toggle back and forth.
I think you may have misunderstood what I meant. The idea isn’t about using all blenders tools. What I’m suggesting is a general-purpose 2D Reference Board editor inside Blender.
The core idea is actually very simple:
A new editor type where you can place multiple images.
It’s 2D, so it works as a built-in reference board.
Later on, people could extend it with plugins or extra features.
Right now, when I’m sculpting, I don’t want references inside my 3D view — then I constantly have to rotate the view around just to see them. My workaround is opening the Image Editor in a separate window and putting my reference there. But the limitation is that it only supports one image at a time, and it’s not designed to act as a proper reference board.
That’s why I think a dedicated editor makes sense.
Why? Just because the 2s Image Editor is used for a single image at a time as designed? The 3d view of a Blender instance has the ability to display your images as planes in the 3d view, grease pencil notes and drawings on said references, text objects for making notations like websites etc., and there is of course the ability to display a single or a few reference models there for examination while working on the subject in the working instance of Blender. Not even a new instance really - you can set a copy of the workspace and then make it part of a new scene with copied settings and pin that there, add the images etc to that editor and when clicking the previous workspace you return to your sculpt.
I don't mean all this to say "nu-uh, don't need it" but that if you look at this first then maybe you can use it to define and illustrate your idea better so the devs could know better how to implement your new editor. Simply adding a new version of the 2d image editor is missing a lot of potential in my mind.
Great idea.
Use another area with the viewport on your refs, just as you'd have with another area with another editor just to show refs.
I find it hard to justify implementing a whole new editor when the 3d view seems to be able to do it. if there's anything missing UX-wise, it'd be easier to improve on those points than making a new editor and maintain it for the next decades.
Plus there are already addons doing exactly that, and thus proving that there isn't much needed from what we already have, but also that there are multiple ways to see a reference management system, and you might want to elaborate on that:
I agree with you — there are definitely workarounds in Blender today. But the reason I had this idea is because I think a dedicated Reference/Planning Board could make the Blender pipeline stronger, while also opening up room for growth.
It wouldn’t just be about references. Over time, it could evolve into a space where people add features like:
Pages (almost like a PowerPoint system for presentations).
Planning tools like mind maps or project roadmaps.
A dedicated place for the early but important stage of the pipeline: “making the idea visual.”
Yes, anyone can drop a bunch of images into the 3D view, but adding text, arrows, and other organizational tools isn’t straightforward there — it becomes too much work. That’s why most people fall back on external programs. A Reference Board editor would give us a simple, direct way to create moodboards, mind maps, and project plans inside Blender, without leaving the program.