October 2026 · Illustrator and PDF import, more materials and light control in Photomatch

This month we worked on import, materials and Photomatch.

Import Illustrator and PDF

Alongside SVG, NearSolid opens Illustrator (.ai) and PDF files as vectors. If you save an Illustrator file with the usual PDF compatibility option enabled, NearSolid reads layer names and applies thickness, material and colour.

That means you can include how a piece should be built in 3D in its layer name, instead of configuring it again after import.

Materials

The library now includes:

• Woods, metals, acrylics and mineral finishes.
• Neon and neon tube.
• Backlit image and lightbox.
• Engraving or marking.

Open Emma’s Horse in 3D and AR ↗

View its fabrication dossier as a PDF ↗

Photomatch: light

• New light control to position illumination around the design and adjust intensity, reflections, ambience and tone.
• Integration effects: tint, noise, blur and night mode.

This makes it easier to show neon, a backlit graphic or a lightbox within a photograph of the space.

Layer selection and rulers

• When you select a layer in the model, it is marked in amber. From the panel, you can change its material or thickness, move, duplicate or delete it, or copy its settings to another layer.
• Without a selection, rulers show the size of the whole model. With a layer selected, they show that layer’s size. Hold Control to measure a specific shape within it.
• The interface is available in Spanish, English, German, French and Portuguese, and you can switch between millimetres and inches.

We will publish more articles and examples about Photomatch and lighting, client presentations, pre-production reports, materials and export workflows.