How a scene becomes sheets

A different instrument from Stepped Layers, in the same case. There, one design is cut at several depths. Here each sheet is a different part of one scene — grass and stones in front, a fence and a tree, the cabin, the tree line, the mountains, the moon — and when the sheets are stacked they combine into one dimensional picture. Layer 1 is the front, nearest you; the last layer is the back.

The whole thing in one paragraph

One image call, then arithmetic. From your prompt and the layer count the studio writes a scene plan, which becomes the brief for a greyscale depth map — white nearest, black farthest, one flat grey per sheet. That picture is cut into exactly that many depth classes, each class is traced into a sheet, each sheet is repaired until it will survive the laser, and the stack is checked as a whole. Everything after the image call is free to redo.

The four steps

The strip under the scene bar is the way through, and each step changes what the centre shows. A step you have not reached yet is greyed out, and a scene that is already built opens on Build Scene.

1. 1Prompt

   Describe the scene, and set anything that goes into the brief — layer count, detail, focal subject. The centre shows the picture the sheets will be cut from, once there is one.

2. 2Depth Map

   Generate it, or upload your own. The depth-map actions and the last eight previous maps live in the left pane here.

3. 3Build Scene

   Turn the picture into sheets. The centre shows the stack every way round — stacked, exploded, one sheet as vector, the 3D turn-over, and the depth map beside them for comparison.

4. 4Layer Editor

   One sheet as it will be cut, black on light, with the sheet list and the checks on the right and the download below. It is for checking a sheet, not for drawing on it: there is no pen and no eraser. The one thing you can take off a sheet here is a stem or tab the build added, by its marker — see Add bridges. Everything else on a sheet comes from the depth map and the settings, and changes when they do.

Where everything is written down

• The depth map — where the picture comes from, what the studio asks the model for, bringing your own, and getting back a map you did not want.
• How each sheet is decided — why a sheet comes out inverted, what the trace keeps, what the repair changes, and why bridging is off.
• Every control — what each setting does and whether it has to be set before you generate.
• Reading the check — every code the panel can show, what causes it, and what to do.
• Colour, preview and saving a scene — the five views, the swatches, and getting a scene back later.

Material, kerf, exporting and the cutter are the same job in both studios and are written once: Your material, Exporting your files and On the cutter.

What it costs

The depth composition costs one image call, priced by the picture's shape: at finished quality a square one is 27 credits and a wide or tall one 40. Quality is not a choice in this studio - every depth map is made at the quality the site is set to - and the line under the price above Generate Depth Map says which shape and quality the number is for. Everything after it — layer count, shape, frame, material, size, colour — rebuilds from the same picture for nothing. On pay as you go the first build of a picture costs credits and every rebuild of it is free; on the plan every build is included. See Credits and plans.

Scenes are saved as you work

The picker at the top left lists every scene on your account, newest first, with its prompt and when it was last touched. New scene — in the picker, and beside Close scene once a scene is open — starts another and leaves the open one exactly as it is; the trash icon that appears when you point at a row deletes that scene. The name field beside the picker renames the open scene, and your account page lists them all with a thumbnail under Your projects, so a scene is never lost behind a closed tab.

Deleting the open scene clears the pane, prompt and focal subject included, so nothing leaks into the next one.

Close scene, beside the name, puts the open scene away without deleting it. The pane clears the same way, and from then on this browser sends nothing that would change that scene — not a rename, not a setting, not a build, not a save that was already waiting to go — in this tab or any other tab you have it open in. A reload does not bring it back, and does not open another scene in its place: the studio stays empty until you choose one. A closed scene can still be deleted from the picker. It stays saved exactly as it was, listed in the picker; choosing it there opens it again, and then it is yours to change as before. A change made in the last half second before you close, such as a Finish colour that had not saved yet, is not saved.

Building takes a minute, and you can walk away

Build Scene queues a job on the server rather than holding the browser open. The overlay names the stage it is on — planning, analysing depth regions, separating layers, tracing each sheet both ways, checking cutability, rendering the previews — and says Waiting for the server · N ahead when other builds are in front of yours.

Closing the tab does not lose it. Reopening the scene picks the build back up where it got to. The scene list waits while it builds; to work on another scene meanwhile, press Close scene first and open the other one - the build carries on just the same. A build that fails refunds its charge automatically. It builds the depth map that was there when you pressed Build Scene: upload or bring back another while it waits or builds, and it stops without making sheets and is not charged - build again for the new one. Builds wait in the same line as Stepped Layers' — see It says “Waiting for the server” for how many one account can have waiting.