ArcBrush 1.7 builds whole materials in its node-based image editor, and makes 32-bit float free

SEATTLE, USA, October 20, 2026: ArcBrush today released version 1.7, which turns its node graph into a material workshop and adds 18 new nodes. Whole texture sets travel on a single wire, six new nodes build and read surface detail, a 3D Render node shows the result lit on a mesh, and a Lens Blur node adds depth of field from the render’s depth pass. The release also makes ArcBrush’s 32-bit floating-point pipeline, its OpenColorIO color management, and its 16-bit, OpenEXR, and Radiance HDR export free for personal and non-commercial use.

ArcBrush is a native image editor for Windows, macOS, and Linux built around a node graph instead of a layer stack. Every operation stays editable, and one source image can fan out into every color variant, size, and format in a single export. Version 1.5 took that pipeline into color-managed 32-bit float, and version 1.6 added a pressure-sensitive brush engine. Version 1.7 extends it from single images to complete materials: a material is a stack of maps rather than one picture, and in 1.7 the whole stack travels on one wire, so every map follows each warp, layer, and trim.

Texture sets. A new Texture node bundles Base Color, Normal, Roughness, Metallic, Ambient Occlusion, Height, Opacity, and Emissive maps into one texture set on one wire. Every placement and warp node, from Transform to Puppet Warp, moves the whole set at once and turns its normal map with it. Texture Folder builds a set from a folder of maps by matching each file to its role by name, Texture Layer stacks sets with height deciding which surface wins, and Split Texture takes a set apart again. Separate, Scatter, and Arrange work on whole libraries of sets, Merge and Mask Apply compose whole sets, and Levels, Curves, and the other color nodes edit one named map of a set while every other map passes through. Export Texture writes one file per map in the naming and channel packing of the destination, with presets for Substance Painter, Blender, Unreal, Unity, Godot, glTF, and others, all editable and savable.

Trim sheets. A new Trim Sheet node lays out a game trim sheet of named, colored trims in any layout, with trims cut out of other trims and space left empty where it should be, sized by dragging the lines between them, or reads the layout of a trim texture that already exists. Right-click a trim and Edit This Trim on Its Own builds its branch in one step: Crop cuts a trim-shaped window from any material on every map at once and can repeat it along the strip, Seamless Blend heals the strip along its length, and Arrange puts every edited trim back at its place on the sheet, extruding its edges so the sheet survives mipmaps. Export Data writes each trim’s rectangle and UVs, and layouts copy to and from Blender’s ZenUV add-on.

Surface detail. Height Layer and Normal Layer stack surfaces with blend modes built for height and normal data. Bevel turns any mask or shape into a smooth beveled height ramp with a matching normal map. Ambient Occlusion bakes contact shading from height, Curvature reads edges and cavities out as masks for wear and grime, and Normal to Height rebuilds a height map from a normal map so normal-only assets can join the rest of the chain. Noise, Pattern, Gradient, and Shape now draw over a picture wired into a new Background input, and over a texture set they draw into one map, so grunge goes straight into a material’s Roughness. Emboss gains Bevel’s six profiles.

3D Render and Lens Blur. The 3D Render node puts a texture set, or a single image, on a lit and shadowed primitive, a shader ball, or a glTF, OBJ, or FBX mesh, lit by an HDR environment and by point and directional lights dragged directly in the Preview. Every built-in shape, the shader ball included, takes tessellation and height displacement, and the camera orbits, pans, focuses on a double-clicked point, and dollies right up to the surface to inspect a seam. It runs on the GPU or the processor, and it outputs a depth pass. The new Lens Blur node reads that pass for real lens defocus, with click-to-focus, aperture blades, anamorphic bokeh, cat-eye edges, spherical and chromatic aberration, true HDR highlight bokeh, six lens presets, and any picture as the aperture’s shape. Levels gains black and white point pickers that read exact values, even a depth distance, and a Normalize view makes a 32-bit depth pass readable at a glance.

Pixel Art and Polar Remap. The Pixel Art node is a pixel-precise sprite, icon, and tile editor inside the graph, with layers, Pixel-Perfect drawing tools that keep a freehand curve one pixel wide, symmetry, seamless tiles drawn in place with a tiled preview, a Shading ink that steps through palette ramps, Marquee, Lasso, and Magic Wand selections, and RGBA or Indexed canvases whose palette recolors every pixel that uses an entry and round-trips with the Swatches panel. Because it lives in the graph, the same editor also paints textures: wired into 3D Render with Nearest filtering, every stroke lands on the 3D model. Polar Remap is redesigned around a Droste mode that repeats a picture inside itself forever, as a tunnel or a spiral that follows a cutout’s outline, with a Zoom that loops for infinite-zoom animation.

Along a path. A new Path Warp node bends a picture along a drawn path or any mask’s edge, for text on a curve or around a badge and for repeating rope, ribbon, and dashed lines, on images and texture sets alike, with presets that start each job on a shape of its own. Scatter gains a Path mode that places whole copies of its stamps along the same kind of path, for leaves on a vine, stitches around a patch, or the links of a chain. Roto’s rebuilt shape editor draws those paths: it selects, scales, and rotates many shapes at once, drags feather on the canvas, and edits points with the gestures of a vector illustration app, and Copy Path and Paste Path share one curve between all three nodes. Overlapping soft masks in Roto and Mask Boolean now blend smoothly instead of leaving a crease.

Export Data. A new Export Data node writes a CSV, JSON, or custom text file about the pictures in the graph and the files they were exported to: sprite atlas coordinates, atlas JSON for Phaser and PixiJS, Starling XML, C# and GDScript sprite tables, CSS sprites, web image manifests, review spreadsheets, dataset metadata, and texture map lists. A live preview explains every empty cell, and when the images it lists are not saved yet, it offers to save them first.

PSD in and out. PSD and PSB files now open anywhere an image does, from Image In, Image Folder, and Texture Folder to a drop on the canvas, a pasted file, or Open with, as the flattened picture in every bit depth and every color mode but Multichannel, with transparency kept. Export Image and Export Batch save flat 8 or 16-bit PSDs that open transparent where the image is. Every import, PSD or not, now converts through the color profile embedded in the file, so Adobe RGB and Display P3 photos no longer arrive washed out, while sRGB and untagged files are unchanged.

Faster and sturdier. Nearly every node cooks faster, most of all on 32-bit images: Smart Scale, Dither, and Mesh Warp run 4 to 11 times faster, the default Noise 3 to 8 times faster at 4K, and Glow about three times faster. Every warp node keeps pace with the handle while dragging at any image size, generators stay interactive at 4K, and while a slider or handle moves, only what is on screen updates. Wiring is faster too: drop a wire on a node to connect its best free pin, or right-click a wire to insert a node that fits it. PNG export compresses on every core and is several times faster, Noise and Smart Scale run on the GPU, and opening and saving files run in the background. Caches share one memory ceiling sized to the machine, running out of memory produces a clear message instead of a crash, and saves can no longer damage the document already on disk. Every cell of the Viewer now has its own zoom and works as a full editor, so a texture painted in one cell appears on a 3D model in the next. The Preview gains rulers and guides, batch playback, and views of a node’s other outputs, and the Text node shows each font on the canvas as the pointer moves down the font list.

32-bit for everyone. The full floating-point pipeline is now part of the free editor: values brighter than white survive the whole graph, compositing happens in linear light, and the viewport renders through a real display transform, with the ACEScg and ACEScct working spaces on a bundled ACES 2.0 configuration. New projects start in 32-bit float; a setting starts them in 8-bit instead, and existing projects keep the precision they were authored in. A Pro license, a one-time $49 purchase, now buys one thing: the right to use ArcBrush, and everything made with it, commercially. Studio covers teams and larger organizations at $99 per seat per year. Both prices are unchanged.

ArcBrush 1.7 is available today at arcbrush.com.

Availability and details

• Windows 10/11, macOS 12+ (Apple Silicon), and Linux (Ubuntu 22.04+, AppImage). Native C++, no web runtime.
• Free for personal and non-commercial use, including the 32-bit float pipeline, OpenColorIO color management, and 16-bit, OpenEXR, and Radiance HDR export. ArcBrush Pro is a one-time $49 license for commercial use, with a 14-day trial that needs no card. Studio is $99 per seat per year.
• Texture sets import from a folder of maps and export with presets for Substance Painter, Blender, Unreal, Unity, Godot, glTF, and more; 3D Render loads glTF, OBJ, and FBX meshes.
• Opens PNG, JPEG, WebP, TIFF, PSD and PSB (flattened), OpenEXR, Radiance HDR, TGA, BMP, and SVG; exports PNG, JPEG, WebP, TIFF, TGA, BMP, flat 8 or 16-bit PSD, OpenEXR, and Radiance HDR.
• Projects saved by 1.7 do not open in 1.6; older projects open and upgrade on save.
• No generative AI features: ArcBrush never generates images, and images are never used to train models. No credits, no subscription. 117 nodes, 18 of them new in 1.7.