mbrlabs/Lorien

Infinite canvas drawing/whiteboarding app for Windows, Linux and macOS. Made with Godot.

Summary

Lorien is a cross-platform infinite canvas drawing and note-taking app built with the Godot Game Engine. Unlike bitmap editors such as Krita or Photoshop, it stores brush strokes as collections of points and renders them at runtime, which keeps savefiles small. The project is MIT-licensed, written primarily in GDScript, and is explicitly flagged as a work in progress.

What it is useful for

Lorien is aimed at engineers and other technical users who want a lightweight digital notebook or brainstorming surface rather than a full painting application. The vector-based storage means sketches, diagrams, and handwritten notes occupy very little disk space, and SVG export lets the output be dropped into other tools or documentation pipelines. It also serves as a reference implementation for anyone building similar tools in Godot: brush stroke antialiasing is handled by the godot-antialiased-line2d library, and the full GDScript codebase is open for reading and modification.

The feature set fits rapid visual thinking during design discussions: an infinite canvas, an almost infinite zoom level, an infinite grid, multi-document support, and a zen mode that toggles the UI off. Tablet use is a first-class concern, with pressure sensitivity support for devices like Wacom, which is useful for engineers who sketch interfaces or system diagrams with a stylus. Built-in and custom color palettes, rebindable keyboard shortcuts, and a selection tool for moving or deleting strokes round out the everyday toolkit.

How engineers can use it

The README does not document a build-from-source workflow with explicit commands; instead, it directs users to download prebuilt binaries from the GitHub Releases page for Windows, Linux, and macOS. Engineers who want the latest changes can grab CI artifacts from the GitHub Actions tab, but the project warns to back up files first because the main branch can be unstable and the savefile format might still change.

For engineers who want to contribute or experiment, the repository includes a Contributing Guide, a localization guide, a changelog, and a roadmap, all linked from the README. The codebase is worth studying for how Lorien structures an infinite vector canvas, integrates tablet pressure input, and handles localization across eleven languages: English, German, Spanish, French, Italian, Korean, Brazilian Portuguese, Russian, Turkish, Ukrainian, and Chinese. Documented limitations include the WIP status, an unstable savefile format, and the fact that it is not intended to replace dedicated bitmap art tools.