Kruel Games – aka technical artist Luiz Kruel – has released Kuadro, a free tool for viewing and managing reference image collections more easily.

Create custom layouts of reference images for multi-monitor setups
Kuadro enables users to open reference images as multiple windows across multiple monitors; resize, rotate, crop, zoom and adjust the window opacity to create a custom layout; then save the layout as a preset.

Individual images can be set to display on top of or behind of software windows. According to Kruel: “It’s designed to stay out of your way and be as minimal as possible.”

Useful stuff, and new features are being added regularly according to user feedback.

Availability
Kuadro is a free download. It’s designed to be portable, so it can run from the executable without installation, making it possible to run it from Dropbox or a thumb drive. It’s Windows-only.

Download Kuadro from Kruel Games’ website

Visit the feedback thread on the Polycount forum

Tags: Concept Art, custom layout, download, free, image viewer, Kruel Games, Kuardro, Luiz Kruel, reference