Blog · Release · November 2, 2026
The view cube, and a pipe in the wind.
Spiralyst Lab 3.9.0 is out today on spiralyst.com/download. Every 3D scene gets a view cube, so the shot you want is one click away. Wind Flow gets a new body, a pipe the air can pour through, and the air next to every surface is more accurate.
The view cube
A live cube now sits at the top of the Camera tab in every 3D scene, and it turns with your camera. Click a face and the camera glides square onto the front, back, sides, top or bottom. Click a corner for a clean three-quarter view. The arrows beside it turn the view a quarter at a time, the buttons underneath jump straight to a face, and you can drag the cube to orbit. In the wind tunnel, Front is the side that meets the oncoming air, so a side view of a wing is exactly a side view.
It is the quickest way to line up a shot for a lesson, a screenshot or a recording, and then let the music take it from there.
Wind Flow: the pipe
Wind Flow gains a seventh body: a pipe, open at both ends. Point its mouth into the wind and watch the air pour through it and wrap around it. Change its length, its inner and outer diameter, its wall, its taper and how rounded its lip is. Narrow the back into a nozzle and the air inside speeds up; widen it into a diffuser and the air slows, and if it widens too fast the scene tells you a real one would stall. Turn the through-flow from plugged to fan-driven, or add swirl vanes, and the flow changes at once, so both can follow your music. Pitch and yaw the pipe across the wind, and in the closed tunnels the walls respond to it the way they do to every other body. The info card and its narration cover the pipe at all four reading levels.
More accurate air next to every surface
A model you load, and the Floating Ducky, are now sealed: air no longer slips through the surface, and the smoke follows the model's real facets instead of a smoothed copy. The pipe's air hugs its walls inside and out, all the way down the bore, and a pipe set across a thin jet carries its smoke right through and out the far end.
Also new
- A new default Wind Flow scene: a smaller wing, with a new view.
- Smoother re-solves: Wind Flow works out a new tunnel or body in the background, so the animation keeps running while it does.
- For automation: the view cube is on the local API too, as
POST /api/camera/face. See the Automation & API page.
New here? Download Spiralyst Lab and try everything free for 20 minutes per launch. A one-year license is $24.99, direct download, from spiralyst.com.
Already a customer? 3.9.0 is included in your license. Download the new build from spiralyst.com/download and replace your copy.