Construct interface guide

Last Updated: 2026-10-16

This guide covers the Construct CAD interface, including panel management, settings, and developer tools.

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Main Interface

The Construct interface consists of:

• Left Panel - Scene tree and parametric view tabs
• Center - 3D viewport with real-time SDF rendering
• Right Panel - Property editors for selected items
• Toolbar - Panel toggles, file operations, and view options

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Panel Management

Toggle Buttons

Use the toolbar toggle buttons to show/hide panels:

Panel visibility is saved automatically and restored on next launch. The material editor is a window of its own, not a panel. It also keeps its size and its place on the screen.

The FPS counter

The toolbar's frame-rate readout counts rendered frames — frames whose pixels actually changed. When nothing in the scene changes, the viewport deliberately stops re-rendering and the counter shows idle; that is the editor saving your GPU, not a stall. Hover the counter to see both rates: the rendered rate (what your eye perceives as motion) and the delivered rate (how often the screen is refreshed with a frame, including re-shows of an unchanged image). The two can differ legitimately — a static scene delivers at full speed while rendering nothing new.

The color grades against your display's refresh rate: green near it, yellow at half, red below.

There is no properties panel. Everything is edited where it lives: a scene item on its own row in the scene tree, and a render layer on its row in the Layers tab (see below).

Render layers

Render layers and post-effects are a debug surface. They are not scene content — they do not live in your document, are not saved with it, and most work never needs them. They are listed in the Layers tab of the left panel, alongside the scene tree.

Selecting a layer there opens its properties directly underneath: its name, whether it is Visible, and whether it is Enabled. Selecting a post-effect shows its name and its type.

Visible and Enabled are separate switches that currently do the same thing. The renderer skips a layer unless both are on, and nothing distinguishes them anywhere else — so turning either one off has exactly the same effect. They are kept apart because they are stored apart, not because they mean different things today.

Resizing Panels

Drag the splitter bars between panels to resize. Panel widths are saved automatically.

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Shader Preview Panel

A developer tool for viewing the generated GLSL shader code.

Features

Usage

1. Click the Shader toggle button to show the panel
2. The generated fragment shader is displayed
3. Use Copy to share shader code
4. Use Copy All for complete debug information

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Settings Persistence

Construct automatically saves and restores:

Settings are stored in the settings store of the platform, under the same organization and application names as the data directory:

• Linux: a .conf file under ~/.config/
• Windows: the registry under HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\

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Material Editor

Open the material editor with:

• the material editor button on the toolbar, or
• a double-click on the sphere of an item's material row in the scene tree. The editor then opens on that material.

The material editor is a window of its own, as the definition picker and the definition editor are. Click the toolbar button again, or click the window's close button, to close it. The window opens where you left it, at the size you left it.

Editor Layout

• A wide window: the material list on the left, the preview sphere and the PBR controls on the right.
• A tall window: the preview sphere and the PBR controls on top, the material list below them. The list takes the height that is left.

The preview

The preview is live. It is the same renderer as the scene viewport. It shows a sphere in the material on a floor in front of a wall, in the scene's default look. A change to a property shows at once. Drag in the preview to turn the camera. Double-click it, or click its reset button, to go back to the first view.

The first time the renderer prepares its shaders, this can take some seconds. During that time the preview shows a painted sphere in the material's colors, a turning spinner and the words "Building the preview…". You can continue to edit the material.

Built-in materials

A built-in material is locked. Its controls are disabled while Save is disabled, so you cannot make a change that you cannot save. You can change a built-in material in two ways:

• Click Save as copy and edit the copy. This is the usual way.
• Check Edit built-in. The controls become available, and Save writes your changes to the built-in material. The check changes no value.

Operations

Make an editable copy

1. Double-click the sphere on an item's material row. The editor opens on that material.
2. Click Save as copy. The copy goes into the library at once.
3. Change the copy's properties, then click Save.

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Definition editor

The definition editor edits one definition record. The left side has four tabs over the record's text: Shader, Blend (for an operator that blends), Preview and Source. The right side has the preview and the sections Validation, Metadata, Field, Parameters, Preview values and Field probe. The header of the Validation section shows the result as a badge: OK, a count of warnings, or a count of errors. The section opens on a problem and closes when it is fixed. The task-by-task guide is Edit an SDF definition.

The 3D preview

The preview is live. It is the same renderer as the scene viewport, showing one instance of the definition. It has the scene's default look: the default background, the default lights and the default material, with the default rendering options. The thumbnails have the same look. If you change the rendering options of a scene, for example its background or its lighting, the preview and the thumbnails keep the default look. The Things finder shows the same preview.

The preview is always square. When the panel is wider than it is tall, the square takes the height and the space beside it stays empty.

An operator, a transform or a modifier draws nothing on its own, so the preview places stand-in shapes under it. These are the same shapes its thumbnail shows.

The camera controls are those of the scene viewport (see Viewport interaction). The first camera is the camera of the definition's thumbnail, and so is the frame of a double-click. Before the thumbnail exists, the preview frames the definition from above, in front and to the right, and takes the thumbnail's camera when the thumbnail arrives, unless you moved the camera.

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Error Indicators

The status bar shows error and warning counts:

• Red - Errors that may affect rendering
• Orange - Warnings
• Blue - Informational messages

Click the status indicator to see error details.

Shared function names

Two definitions can use the same GLSL function names, for example a library definition and its copy saved as new. Construct gives each definition its own copy of its functions when it builds the scene shader, so no warning appears.

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Keyboard Shortcuts

In the Things finder (Find and add a definition):

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Related Guides

• Material System - Managing materials and PBR properties