Your thinking isn't linear.
Your canvas shouldn't be either.
A pro-grade canvas toolset native to your Obsidian vault.
Built for thinkers who outgrew the default to unlock their true visual thinking potential.
to explore the light
Draw directly on canvas
Sketch, outline, and annotate directly over your canvas. Features auto-morphing shapes that snap to perfect geometry, custom brush styles, and editable vector layers that scale infinitely without pixelation.
Build complex layouts in seconds
Save complex clusters of nodes, drawings, and connection routes as reusable stamps. Deploy pre-programmed chains of layouts instantly to map out frameworks in a single click.
Never lose an asset
Your vault's entire universe in a single sidebar. Browse, sort, and preview every file type — images, videos, markdown notes, canvas files — organized by date, size, or visual hue. Hover to scrub video timelines, preview documents inline, and drag-and-drop anything directly onto your canvas.
Never untangle another messy line
Bypass rigid center points. Connect nodes with multiple custom points along any edge, featuring mathematical curves that dynamically reroute to the cleanest layout when nodes are repositioned.
Teleport. Don't scroll/pan.
Navigate massive canvases with a bird's-eye spatial overview, ensuring you never lose your place no matter how large your workspace grows. Drop custom spatial pins on critical thoughts and click to teleport across thousands of pixels instantly with smooth, physics-based easing.
Supporting Subsystems
A deeper look at the visual and physics pipelines that power the canvas engine.
Total layout freedom
Break free from standard horizontal alignments. Free-rotate any text, card, or image node in 2D space to construct your own custom visual focal points and unstructured layouts.
Clone structures instantly
Duplicate any selected node, group, or vector drawing instantly. Clone elements while fully preserving their connection structures to rapidly expand your spatial workspaces.
Stop fighting the viewport
Navigation designed with smooth momentum. Pan across thousands of nodes and let the canvas coast naturally to a halt, eliminating the rigid stops of traditional web canvases.
A workspace that feels alive
Organize related concepts inside semi-transparent containers. Watch container borders, backdrop blurs, and colors dynamically scale based on nesting layers and pointer proximity.
Local-First. Quiet. Yours.
I built Crystal Canvas to be an invisible rendering layer over your markdown vault. No cloud databases, no background tracking, no middle-men.
Zero Cloud Footprint
Every stroke, layout change, and custom connection point lives exclusively on your hard drive. Your data runs strictly inside Obsidian's native .canvas file structure. If you decide to uninstall the plugin tomorrow, your files remain completely intact, open, and readable. Your research never leaves your hard drive.
Absolute Silence
I do not track your clicks, catalog your ideas, or record your crashes in the background. There are no tracking scripts, no database analytics, and no cloud check-ins. The engine operates in total isolation, providing the quiet, distraction-free environment you need to think.
Developer Proximity
Early access means we evolve the engine together. When you hit a layout bug or need a custom templates stamp, submit it directly from your settings panel. Your report bypasses massive ticket platforms and drops straight into my personal dev terminal for weekly patches.
Think visually. Yours forever.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why did you build this?
Why isn't this free like Excalidraw or FigJam?
Will it lock my data or break my existing canvases?
.canvas files. Your data remains perfectly safe, standard, and local.