For those who don’t know the tool: PureRef is a standalone reference board application used across concept art VFX animation and games to organise images and notes alongside any DCC. It runs independently and politely ignores your pipeline.
What shipped in 2.1
PureRef version 2.1.0 was released – the feature list is long and unusually detailed, suggesting a development cycle focused on incremental workflow friction rather than headline features. The most visible addition is a togglable background grid with snapping support, enabled with the “G”-shortcut. This directly addresses a long standing complaint that precise alignment in large reference boards required manual nudging. Snapping applies during transform operations and works alongside existing arrange tools. Recent files thumbnails are now displayed on a new empty canvas. This is a small change, but one that shifts the startup experience from a blank void to a visual index of recent work. There is no indication of how many thumbnails are shown or whether this behaviour can be disabled.
Image management grows up
A new Image management tool has been added, supporting updates to downscaling, image formats, and image locations. The release do not say whether this is a modal tool or a background process. It does confirm that the existing Auto downscale large images setting has been replaced with Auto optimise imported images, suggesting broader control over import behaviour.
There is also a new setting for Clipboard copy image max size, and another for Generate scene thumbnails, which allows thumbnail generation on save to be disabled. The notes explicitly state this may speed up saving depending on scene size and performance mode. This is one of the few places where performance impact is directly acknowledged rather than implied. Support for new versions of JPEG XL is listed under fixes, confirming continued investment in modern image formats. No other new formats are mentioned, but, honestly, when did you see a new image format the last time?
Drawing and notes get serious
PureRef 2.1 adds straight lines and shapes to the drawing tools, moving them beyond freehand markup. Drawings and notes now have adjustable opacity, and the crop gizmo gains an aspect lock function. Rich text editing support has been added to the Comment dialog, and notes receive a large number of behavioural tweaks and bug fixes. These include improved copy and paste handling, better list formatting, correct colour handling for bullets, and reduced memory usage in notes, particularly when using the No cache performance mode. This mode trades speed for lower memory use.
Word wrap is now enabled automatically when pasting long text lines, links can be inserted without selecting text, and quoted paths pasted into the link editor have their quotes removed. These are small changes, but together they point to sustained use of notes as more than disposable annotations.
Shortcuts control and hierarchy
Several new commands have been added with default shortcuts, including Duplicate on Ctrl + D, Open scene location on Ctrl + Alt + L, Arrange randomly on Ctrl + Alt + R, and Parent items on P. Edit item is now bound to Return. The default shortcut for Draw has changed to Ctrl + Shift + D to make room for Duplicate. This is explicitly described as conforming with standards, a rare but welcome admission.
Hierarchy behaviour has been tightened. Edit actions are now blocked when the scene is locked, navigating by typing has been fixed, and crashes related to duplicating notes in the hierarchy have been addressed. Item tooltips in the hierarchy now show comments, adding context without opening dialogs.
Groups transforms and layout
Groups receive multiple quality of life updates. Items can now be added to existing groups by selecting the group before using the Group action. The last used group background colour is remembered between restarts. Moving items from different groups at the same time should no longer merge them into one group.
When exporting or copying groups, all children are now included if no child is explicitly selected. This clarifies previously ambiguous behaviour. Toolbars are hidden while transforming an item, and the transform gizmo and toolbars are hidden during transform operations. Yes, both are listed. This suggests overlapping changes that were implemented in stages. The aspect ratio of the window is now used for all arrange methods. New images are placed in a grid during loading to reduce flickering.
Application behaviour and settings
A large number of new settings have been added. These include CPU core allocation to tweak resource usage, Drag and drop items into groups, Double click title bar to maximise, Continuous deselect, and Use screen colour profile, which is explicitly marked experimental.
There is now an option to hold Ctrl during startup to temporarily disable Auto open last scene. This is a practical escape hatch for corrupted or heavy scenes. An Open scene location command has been added, along with Replace image and Normalize area commands. The exact behaviour of Normalize area is not explained.
Platform specific fixes
Windows receives transparency tweaks to the glass preset and a workaround for a crash caused by IBM Aspera Connect when opening file dialogs. macOS sees a long list of fixes, including freezes when disconnecting monitors, crashes when opening .pur files during load, incorrect maximise behaviour on double click, and issues with Stage Manager and always on top. Logitech MX mice are no longer detected as trackpads. Linux fixes include restored use of the native file dialog and missing system fonts.
Price
PureRef 2.1 is free for single users, a one-time payment of 49$ gives you three seats, and there are subscriptions available for businesses from 8$ per User per month. See the options HERE. As always, new tools and updates should be tested before use in production environments.
