Inside Metaspace
In the Modern editor, the mesh is never the source material. Every mark changes an editable field of Spatial Ink voxels, and Metaspace continuously turns that field into optimized geometry for display.
Voxel-native creation
Apple Pencil and touch gestures deposit or remove voxels in three-dimensional space. These voxels - not vertices, edges, or faces - are the editable model. Spatial Ink remains independent of the topology used to render it.
Responsive by design
A live preview follows the active gesture while committed voxel changes are remeshed in the background. Drawing and navigation run at the display’s native refresh rate - including up to 120 fps on supported ProMotion devices - then become demand-driven when the scene is still.
From gesture to surface
Each tool translates Pencil or touch samples into volumetric marks with position, scale, colour, and material character.
Marks are sampled into a stable three-dimensional voxel field. This is the authored state the user changes and Metaspace saves.
Whenever the voxel state changes, Metaspace regenerates the affected surface with topology adapted to the current form. There is no mesh cleanup step and no topology for the user to manage.
The generated surface is lit, shaded, depth-tested, and presented by a native Metal renderer tuned for iPhone and iPad.
Editable voxels remain in the Metaspace project; OBJ and USDZ exports receive a generated triangle mesh for use in conventional 3D tools.
Core runtime
A gesture changes Spatial Ink, the affected volume is retopologized, and the resulting mesh is swapped into the live scene. The loop repeats after every edit while the voxel model remains the single source of truth.
Pencil-aware input
Metaspace combines coalesced Pencil samples for path accuracy with temporary predicted samples that keep the visible stroke close to the tip. Pressure, tilt, and movement pace can reshape the voxel field, while hover previews the footprint before contact.
Synchronized orientation
The mini-viewer is not a duplicated scene or a simplified preview. It asks the same Metal renderer to draw the same generated geometry from a fixed top, bottom, left, or right orthographic camera. Both views share GPU resources, remain synchronized, and redraw only when the scene or camera changes.
Interaction technologies
Orbit, pan, and pinch-to-zoom can operate together, allowing touch to reposition the camera in one continuous gesture. In Pencil-only mode, Apple Pencil remains dedicated to drawing.
Camera rotation is gently attracted to 90-degree increments, then settles precisely on release. The result combines free orbiting with reliable axial views.
A screen-consistent eraser is translated into world space and carves the voxels it touches. Affected geometry is regenerated, whole-mark removal can be previewed, and edits support undo and redo.
Brush dynamics, Pencil tilt, rounded fields, and the Chisel’s box field generate distinct volumes before meshing - not superficial variations of the same polygonal stroke.
Technical questions
For platform, integration, research, or press enquiries, contact the studio directly.
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