Panels reference

A quick tour of every panel in DNA — what each one shows, and where to read more.

Every panel is a view onto your graph. None of them is a separate place to make things — DNA is the node graph, and panels just render or edit what the graph already knows about. You can drag any panel's tab to dock it anywhere, split a region, or stack panels as tabs. See Panels & Layout for how docking works.

Viewing and editing

Node Graph — the canvas where you build. Add nodes, wire them together, group them into subgraphs, and watch the cook-policy badge tell you how each node updates. This is home base. → The node graph

Viewport — your live result, 2D or 3D, rendered in real time. Orbit, pan, zoom, and reach for the on-canvas tools to draw, place, and transform directly. → The viewport · Viewport tools

Parameters — the controls for whatever node is selected: sliders, colours, toggles, menus. Right-click a widget to keyframe it, drive it with an Expression, or connect it to a signal. → Parameter widgets

Time, layers and structure

Timeline & Layer Manager — playback and your scene's layer stack in one place. Scrub and set the play range on the timeline; toggle visibility, lock, solo, and bypass, set opacity and blend modes, and drag to reorder layers. → The timeline · Layers & compositing

Data and inspection

Data Viewer — a spreadsheet of any node's output. Every point and its attributes laid out in sortable, resizable columns with quick keyboard navigation, plus an Export CSV button. Large tables show the first 1000 rows (export for the rest). Great for checking what your data actually contains. → Attributes

Per-node Viewer — a viewport pinned to one specific node instead of following your selection. Handy for keeping an eye on an upstream result while you work downstream. → Pin to panel

Console — the running log: messages, warnings, and errors with timestamps, colour-coded by severity and tagged by source. Your first stop when something looks off. → Gotchas

Assets, output and tuning

Asset Browser — your library of images, video, audio, 3D models, subgraphs, and plugins. Search and filter, scroll to zoom between a compact list and big thumbnails, and drag any asset straight into the graph. Import files or add a watch folder right from the panel. → The asset browser

Export Targets — the view of your export and render-output nodes, where you set up what DNA writes out. The settings live on the nodes; this panel gathers them in one place. → Exporting

Performance — a live read on speed: a rolling frame-time graph with 60/120 fps reference lines, draw and triangle counts, and per-node timing so you can find the slow node. → The performance panel

Help

Documentation — these pages, available inside the app so you can read without leaving your project.

Plugins can add their own panels. Anything a plugin contributes shows up in the panel menu right alongside the built-ins. → Plugins

See also