The Files workspace lets you browse through 3D models at a chosen folder location.
Last updated on
Jun 19, 2025
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Home screen
When you launch Viewer, the Home screen appears, which includes the following:
- Information about getting started.
- Access your recent files and folders.
- Drag and drop a 3D file to open it.
Select the Home icon in the Header to access the Home screen at any point while working with Viewer.
The Home screen also has buttons on the left:
- Open a file: Browse to and open a file.
- Open a folder: Browse to and open a folder. When opening a folder, the first file in the root of that folder will be opened by default
- Open a file with settings: Modify import settings before opening a file.
Main interface
Substance 3D Viewer separates the interface into a collection of workspaces. Each workspace provides access to different controls and properties that let you change certain aspects of your scene.
The main interface of Substance 3D Viewer is built around the Viewport. The Viewport is where 3D models and scenes are displayed and can be interacted with.
Workspaces
The left bar lets you access the different workspaces available.
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The Appearance workspace provides controls to change the materials and appearance of the current 3D model. |
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With the Composition workspace you can add a background image to your scene and adjust output parameters to composite an image. |
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The Environment workspace lets you adjust the lighting and background color of your scene. |
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The Generate workspace provides access to tools that help you create high quality images from your 3D scene, or generate 3D models from text prompts. |
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The Export workspace allows you to save high quality renders for use in other applications. |
Header
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The Home icon in the top left lets you navigate back to the Home screen. |
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The view mode switch allows you to switch between a standard 3D view in which you can freely navigate around your model in 3D space, and a Canvas view. |
View controls
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“Fit to selection” reframes the object in full frame of the viewport. |
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“Reset” resets the view to the default ¾ viewpoint. |
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“View settings” allows to change view related settings such as the field of view (focal length) or to switch between a perspective or orthographic view projection. |
Rendering mode and Image overlay
The Ray tracing button allows you to switch between the default, fast, real-time rendering mode and a slower, but higher quality, ray tracing rendering mode.
While real-time rendering is instantaneous, Ray tracing requires time for the light computation to converge. The image will appear noisy at first but refine over several seconds.
The image overlay button allows you to toggle the visibility of the currently selected generated image. If no images have been generated or selected, this button will be greyed out.
While generated images are visible in the Viewport, they may block visibility of your scene.
Snapshot and Send to
The Snapshot and Send to buttons allow you to save or export images for use in other applications. You can learn more about how to use these features here.
