The interface

Curva’s window is the model, with panels floating over it. Every panel can be moved, docked to an edge, merged with others as tabs, hidden or closed, and Curva remembers how you arranged them.

The pieces

Piece	Where it starts	What it’s for
Top bar	Top	Curva’s File and Settings menus, the specialization dial, and the name of the open model. Always there.
Commands	Under the top bar	The commands for the current specialization, as tabs of buttons. Hover a button to see its name. From version 0.4.3 this panel is called Operations.
Viewports	Behind everything	The model, in four views: Top, Front, Right and Perspective.
Display	Top left	How the viewport draws the model: Wireframe, Shaded or Ghosted.
Layers	Right	Layers: name, colour, visible, locked, print width.
Properties	Right	The selected objects: name, layer, colour and anything else they remember.
Command bar	Bottom centre	Where you type commands and answer their questions. See below.
AI Assistant	A panel of its own	Ask for help or have it run commands for you, with a local model or an API key you set in Settings → AI Assistant.
Agent access	Bottom right	Lets AI agents outside Curva use its commands through MCP. On by default: untick it if you don’t want other programs to reach Curva.

The version number sits in small text at the window’s bottom right.

The specialization dial

Curva is one program whose tools change with the kind of work. The dial in the top bar turns between Freeform, Architecture, Publisher and Analysis: click a name, or scroll over the dial. Today only Freeform has its tools. The others show “Coming in a later milestone”.

The command bar

Almost everything in Curva is a command, and the command bar is where you run them. It works like Rhino’s.

• Type a command’s name and press Enter. As you type, a list shows the commands that match. Most have short names too: l for Line, c for Circle, m for Move.
• The command asks its questions in the prompt: pick a point, select objects, type a distance. Its options are listed after the question: click one, or type its name.
• Press Enter on an empty line to repeat the last command. Esc cancels.
• The history above the prompt shows what you’ve run and what Curva answered.
• Under the prompt: object snaps, Ortho, Grid snap, the Gumball and the selection filter, each one click to turn on or off.

You can also start commands from the buttons in the Commands panel: it’s the same command either way.

Moving around

To	In Top, Front, Right	In Perspective
Pan	Right-drag	Shift + right-drag
Orbit		Right-drag
Zoom	Wheel, or Ctrl + right-drag	Wheel, or Ctrl + right-drag

• Double-click a viewport’s title to fill the window with it, and again to go back to four. The 4View command also brings back the standard four.
• ZoomExtents (ze) fits the whole model in every viewport.
• Alt + Z steps back to the previous view, and Alt + Shift + Z forward again. View changes aren’t part of undo, as in Rhino.

Selecting

• Click an object to select it. Clicking anywhere on a surface or solid’s faces selects it, not only its edges.
• Drag a box from left to right to select what’s wholly inside it, or right to left to select everything it touches.
• Esc clears the selection when no command is running.
• The selection filter in the command bar limits what can be picked, for example curves only.

Undo

Ctrl + Z undoes the last change to the model, and Ctrl + Y or Ctrl + Shift + Z redoes it. It works even while you’re typing in the command bar.

Arranging panels

• Drag a panel by its title to move it. Drop it on an edge to dock it, or onto another panel to merge them as tabs. Drag tabs to reorder them.
• Drag a panel’s edge to resize it: the edge glows when you’re on it.
• The V at a panel’s top right slides it out of the way to the nearest edge, leaving a tab to pull it back.
• The cross closes a panel. Bring it back from Settings → Interface, which lists every panel with a switch, and has Reset interface to go back to the standard layout.

Light, dark and glass

Curva follows your system’s light or dark setting. To choose one, or to switch the panels between frosted glass and solid, open Settings → General. That’s also where you set the model’s units.