Layers and depth

Every sheet carries the whole design. What changes between them is how much has been cut away: the top sheet is your artwork with every opening at full size, and each sheet below has its openings pulled in a little further, so looking into the piece you see it step down. Because they all come from the same design, they line up automatically.

Nothing changes until you rebuild

The settings on the left are grouped by when they matter, under the same two headings as in Landscape Silhouette Layers. Before you build is what Rebuild Layers reads; After it is built is the Finish, which only repaints the preview. Every setting on this page is in one section under the first heading, Build quality, just under Source artwork: the finished size, the border and frame, the layers, what each layer keeps, how closely the cut follows the artwork, and your laser's kerf. A box at its top says whether the layers on screen were built with what is set, and when they were not, has a Rebuild Layers button of its own. Below it, Material holds the two things that are recorded and never cut, the material's name and Sheet thickness. What the image model reads - style, symmetry, the picture's shape - stays under Source artwork, because it is paid for.

These settings do not touch the layers on screen until you press Rebuild Layers at the foot of the studio or in Build quality. That is deliberate: a build is real geometry and takes a minute or two, so you can change three things and wait once. Rebuilding a picture you have already built is free.

Until you rebuild, two labels say the stack on screen is out of date: settings changed · rebuild in the bar at the foot of the studio, and stack is stale at the foot of the settings on the left, beside Reset to defaults. After a rebuild the second reads stack matches settings. Every setting except the Finish colours lights them — the art-direction controls under Source artwork included, although those only change the next picture, so a rebuild after changing one gives the same layers and just clears the label. Reopening the project, or opening it in another tab, does not clear them: until you rebuild, layers built from settings other than the ones saved with the project are shown as out of date. While they are, the bar says nothing about whether those layers passed their check, and Validate says there is nothing to check yet: the check is of the layers you would cut, and the rebuild makes and checks them.

You can keep changing settings while a build runs. When it finishes, what you changed is still set, and the labels say the new stack was built without it.

Reset to defaults puts every setting in the left pane back to its default. The cleanup on the Clean Artwork step is not in that pane and is left as it is; it has its own Reset cleanup.

The cleanup controls on the Clean Artwork step are the exception. They clean the mask again on their own, a moment after you move them, and that throws the built layers away rather than marking them stale — see Cleaning the artwork.

What a build did — tabs it added, openings it closed, pieces it dropped, and anything it wants to warn you about — is written in its notes. They are listed at the foot of the Clean Artwork step, under the controls, and again in the README.txt in the download.

How many layers

The studio cuts between 3 and 12 sheets, and a new project starts at six. Three to five is the usual answer. Above six the differences between sheets get small enough that you stop seeing them, while the glue-up gets fiddly and the piece gets heavy.

Try four first. It is enough to read as carved and quick enough to cut twice if you change your mind.

Layer count

How many sheets of wood get stacked, from 3 to 12. Every sheet carries the whole design; each one below the top has its openings pulled in by the step, so more sheets means more depth and more cutting. Geometry only — it takes effect when you rebuild, which is free and never costs an image.

Layer step

How much each opening shrinks on the way down, from 0 to 5 mm; a new project starts at 2 mm. The top sheet is your artwork as traced; every sheet below has the same openings pulled in by this much again, so looking into one you see a ledge of each sheet underneath.

Bigger means more obvious steps and a chunkier look; smaller is subtler but can be lost once glue and finish go on. At 0 the openings line up exactly and you look straight down a shaft. If the piece looks flat in the preview, it will look flatter in wood.

An opening closes on a sheet once the step has pulled it in by half its width, so with a large step and many sheets the small openings are gone well before the bottom. That is the point — the fine detail lives on the top sheets — but if nearly everything has shut by halfway down, the build notes warn that the piece will read as a board with holes in it, and a smaller step or fewer sheets fixes it.

Bottom layer

Whether the last sheet is closed. Two choices.

• Solid silhouette — the default. Closes the back sheet completely, so no light shows through. Gives you something to glue to and a clean edge behind the openings. The right answer unless you are lighting the piece from behind.
• As the step leaves it — the back sheet keeps whatever openings the step gave it, so light passes through. Use it for backlit pieces and window hangings.

Projects made before Solid silhouette became the default keep the setting they were built with; open one and the control says which it is.

On many designs the choice makes no difference: every sheet is inset by the step, the bottom one by the whole stack's worth, and that alone often closes the back sheet. The line under the control says which case you are in — measured on the last build, so before the first build it can only say that it will be measured.

Island policy

What to do with a piece of material that nothing joins to the rest of the sheet — see the next section for why this matters. Four choices, in rough order of how often they are the right one.

• Auto bridge — adds a small tab so detached pieces stay attached. The default, and almost always what you want. Under Open frame it is also what makes the tabs holding the design to the frame; the other choices make none there.
• Remove problem feature — drops the cut that detaches the material instead of tabbing it - only that cut: openings inside the loose piece free nothing, and stay cut. Use it when the tab would be more visible than the detail it is saving.
• Allow separate piece — cuts it free and leaves you to glue it back by hand. Honest, occasionally the best-looking result, and a lot of tweezer work.
• Bridge everything (stencil) — takes the mask literally whenever the wood is in more than one piece, tabbing every piece together. This is the stencil case: lettering, or a drawing read with its light side as the wood.

Islands, and why they matter

An island (a piece with nothing joining it to the rest of the sheet) is the centre of an O, or a floating dot in the design. When the cutter finishes, it falls out.

The studio can either add a bridge (a thin strip of material joining the island to its surroundings) to hold it, or refuse the island and leave it filled in. Bridges keep the design honest; refusing keeps the sheet simple. Neither is wrong, and the check will tell you which pieces are affected either way.

Tidying up the shapes

Two corrections applied to the traced geometry, both in Build quality, under How the cut follows the artwork. Both are on by default and both are free to toggle, because they change geometry rather than asking for a new picture; like everything here, a change takes effect on the next rebuild.

Make symmetry exact

Where your artwork is already close to mirror-symmetric, rebuilds it from one half and its reflection so both sides match exactly. The image model draws mirrored halves almost the same, and the small differences add up to looking sloppy once cut. Artwork that is not already symmetric is left alone, so turning it on is safe.

Exact circles and rectangles

Snaps openings that are meant to be circles, ellipses, rectangles or rounded slots to the exact shape. Tracing a drawn circle returns it a fraction of a millimetre out of round, which shows once a row of them is cut side by side. Organic shapes are left as drawn.

Worth keeping on for geometric and Art Deco designs. Turn it off if an organic design comes out stiffer than you drew it.

The border

The shape of the finished piece, chosen here — after the picture exists — because it is geometry: it never reaches the image model, and rebuilding after changing it is free. The picture's own shape and fill are chosen before you generate, under Source artwork.

• Frame — a rectangle the shape of the picture, and so a square on a square picture. The design sits inside it and the space around it is wood. Frame width, Margin and Corner radius below shape it.
• Open frame — the Frame, with the background between the frame and the design cut away. Every sheet is the Frame's rectangle and keeps its band; inside it the design is cut exactly as the Outline border would cut it, and the space between the design and the band is cut through on every sheet above the back one, the same on each, so you look into the frame at the design standing in front of the back sheet. The back sheet keeps that space solid. Under Island policy Auto bridge, the default, tabs hold the design to the frame, one on each side, made wider when they have far to reach so they do not snap; they show in the Layer Editor like any other tab. Under any other Island policy there are no tabs, and the frame holds the design only where it reaches it: widen Frame width until it meets the design. With Allow separate piece, a design the frame does not reach is cut free on every sheet above the back one, to glue down onto the sheet below; with Remove problem feature, the background that would cut it loose is left solid instead, as under Frame. The build notes say which. Frame width is how far the solid frame comes in from the edge, and the design keeps its size whatever you set: a wider frame comes in to meet the design and joins it wherever it reaches, so that side needs no tab and the piece is stronger. Where the frame and the design come closer than the laser can cut between, the gap is left as wood, joining them there. Refuse a tab in the Layer Editor and it goes; refuse every one and, where the frame does not reach the design, the design is cut free on every sheet above the back one, as under Allow separate piece - glue it down onto the sheet below, or widen Frame width until it meets the design. The build notes say so, and a refused tab stays greyed on the canvas so a click brings it back. It needs space round the design: over a picture drawn edge to edge there is no background to open and it builds as a Frame, so set Fill to Whole design, nothing cut off. Frame width is at least 3 mm here, since the frame is what holds the design.
• Circle — a round piece. Round a design drawn whole it is the smallest circle that holds all of it, plus the frame width; if that circle would not fit the canvas, the design is brought down to fit rather than cut off. Over a picture drawn edge to edge it is the largest circle inside the picture, so the corners, and the ends of a tall or wide picture, are cut away. Frame width and Margin shape it.
• Outline — no frame: the piece is cut along the outside edge of the design, which suits an organic mandala and looks unfinished on a geometric one. On a picture drawn edge to edge the outside edge is the picture's own rectangle, cut straight rather than along the slightly ragged edge where the drawing meets the paper, and the build notes say so; for a piece shaped like the design, set Fill to Whole design, nothing cut off and generate again. A drawing whose strokes do not touch one another is cut with the ink as the wood and the strokes held together by small tabs; under Frame or Circle the paper is the wood instead and needs none — see Auto polarity. A design whose parts stand far apart — more than a quarter of its width — is cut round each part rather than round all of them, and what holds the parts together follows Island policy: under Auto bridge connecting tabs join them, made wider when they have far to reach, and they show in the Layer Editor and can be refused like any other tab; under Allow separate piece there are none and the parts are cut separately, to place by hand; under Remove problem feature there are none either, and the space between the parts is left solid. The build notes say which.

Under Frame and Circle everything outside the design is wood, and that includes background that reaches into the design from outside — the sky between a bird's raised wings, the page between strokes drawn in ink. Only openings closed on every side are cut. So a design drawn as open strokes loses its detail wherever it meets that background: a head drawn against the sky joins the frame and comes out solid. When much of the design's edge faces the background the build says so in its first note. Open frame cuts that background away and keeps the detail inside a frame; Outline cuts along the design and keeps it with no frame.

The outline is drawn round the whole design, closing the gaps between its separate pieces so a ring of petals comes out as one scalloped disc. A letter or shape whose inside is open to the outside - a G, an n, a C - is walled off at its mouth by that same closing and then cut like a closed letter: the inside is an opening, and anything drawn inside it is held as an island. It used to come out solid, because an open inside is background and background inside the outline is wood.

A project saved with the old Square panel opens with the Frame, which on a square picture is the same thing; on a tall or wide picture the square panel left plain wood down two sides, and the Frame does not.

Frame width

A plain band just inside the frame or circle's edge that stays solid, so there is a clean frame to handle and hang the piece by. Measured in millimetres, and never under 3 mm, the same floor as in Landscape Silhouette Layers. A project saved before the floor with a narrower width, or with none, shows 3 and is built with a 3 mm frame the next time it is built; the build notes say so. The default is 7 mm (6 before version 1.2; a project you saved keeps the width it was saved with, and a template keeps the one it was made with). The design is placed for a 6 mm band: up to 6 mm it sits inside the band, and past 6 mm, under Frame, Circle and Open frame alike, the design keeps the size it has at 6 mm and a wider band comes in over its edge to meet it, rather than shrinking it - the same rule as the Landscape frame past 12 mm. At the default 7 mm that is a millimetre at most, where the design reaches the band; the build notes mention a wider frame only past 7 mm. Under Open frame the band is also what holds the design.

Margin

Empty sheet left outside the frame or circle. Raise it if your material needs somewhere to clamp, or if your machine cannot cut right to the edge of a sheet.

Corner radius

Rounds off the frame's corners, the Open frame's included. Leave at zero for a hard-edged rectangle. A few millimetres takes the sharpness off a corner that would otherwise be easy to knock.

Vector tracing

How the cleaned mask becomes the outlines the laser follows, under How the cut follows the artwork in Build quality. The defaults suit almost every picture; these are for when the cut edges look wrong in the Vector view. Like everything on this page, a change takes effect on the next rebuild.

Simplify tolerance

How far the cut path may stray from the traced edge, from 0 to 0.5 mm; the default is 0, which keeps every traced point. Higher gives a simpler path with far fewer points and a smaller file, but corners start to round off and fine detail drifts. At the top of the range it also drops traced specks and pinholes under about 1 mm². How smoothly the curves are then drawn depends on Min bridge width as well: at its 0.1 mm default they follow the trace closely.

Contour smoothing

Softens the mask's edge slightly before it is traced, which irons out the pixel-by-pixel jitter a traced edge otherwise carries. From 0 to 3; the default is 0.85. Too much rounds corners and closes the finest gaps: on a test picture 0.85 closed a slot one pixel wide, and 3 also closed one two pixels wide and erased a strand of wood two pixels wide.

Curve tension

How sharp a turn has to be before the curve fit keeps it as a corner, from 0 to 1; the default is 0.5. Low keeps gentle bends as corners, so outlines stay angular. High keeps only sharp turns and lets the rest flow into smooth curves, which can round off a corner you meant. It is greyed out when Fit cubic Béziers is off, because then there are no curves to fit.

Trace supersample

Enlarges the mask before tracing, 1× to 4×, so the edge is found between pixels rather than along them; the default is 2×. Higher follows curves a little more finely and traces more slowly, and above 2× the difference is small.

Fit cubic Béziers

On by default. Draws the outlines as smooth curves rather than many short straight lines. Off, every outline is exported as straight segments, which is a much larger file and looks faceted on curves. Leave it on unless your cutter software has trouble with curves.

The Layer Editor

Once the layers are built, the canvas shows the stack, the list on the right describes every sheet, and the tabs below it hold the check and the features. Nothing here changes a cut unless you ask it to.

Seeing the stack

Four views, switched above the canvas.

• Stacked — every visible sheet in place, as the piece will look glued up. The opacity slider fades the upper sheets so you can see the cuts beneath, and the eye on a sheet's row in the layer list hides it.
• Exploded — the sheets fanned out along a diagonal, each labelled with its number and role. The quickest way to see what each sheet carries.
• Vector — one sheet's cutting file exactly as the laser gets it, black on light. Choose the sheet from the layer menu beside it.
• 3D — the stack as a solid object, each sheet as thick as your Sheet thickness. Drag to turn it over. Preview only.

Beside the views are switches for what is marked on the canvas: warnings marks every warning from the check (errors are always marked), and feature overlay, bridges (N) and islands (N) are described below. The markers are not shown in the exploded or 3D views. None of this changes what is cut.

Colour

Finish, in the settings on the left, colours the preview. Wood is simulated plywood, bottom sheet darkest. Paint gives each sheet a colour of its own. Choose one of the seven Palette presets — Walnut, Ocean, Forest, Sunset, Monochrome, Copper and Ice, each running dark at the bottom to light at the top, because darker reads as further away — then change any sheet under Per layer, bottom layer first, by clicking its swatch. Reverse flips the order and Match wood loads the wood shades as a starting point.

Colours save themselves with the project, and the stacked, exploded and 3D views and the preview images in the download all use them. They never reach a cutting file, never mark the stack stale and never need a rebuild.

Reading the layer list

One row per sheet, top sheet first. top → bottom and bottom → top only change the reading order: layer 1 is always the backer and the highest number always the top. Each row shows the sheet's role — BOTTOM / BACKER and TOP / MAX DETAIL at the ends, LOW DETAIL to HIGH between — an eye that hides the sheet in the preview, and a download arrow for that sheet's file. combined at the head of the list downloads every sheet in one file.

The numbers on each row describe that one sheet.

• cutouts — openings cut inside the sheet.
• contours — every closed outline on the sheet, its outer edge included.
• nodes — points along those outlines, which is roughly how heavy the file is.
• pieces — how many separate parts the sheet comes out as. It turns amber above 1, meaning something on that sheet will be cut free: a tab you refused, a piece the build could not hold, or pieces left loose on purpose under Allow separate piece.
• internal cut — the length of cutting inside the outer edge.
• total cut — the internal cut plus the outer edge, which is what the laser runs for this sheet.
• rapid travel — an estimate of how far the head moves between outlines without cutting. Good for comparing sheets; it is not a job time.
• min width — the narrowest wood measured on the sheet. Compare it with your Min bridge width.
• removed and removed area — how much of the sheet is cut away, as a share and in square millimetres. material is the wood that is left.
• complexity — a score from 0 to 100 against the busiest sheet in this stack: mostly cut length, then points, outlines, area removed and how curvy it is. It compares sheets within one project, not one project with another.

Under the numbers a bar shows detail — this sheet's internal cutting as a share of the top sheet's — against target, the share the build aimed for. In a stepped stack every sheet aims at 100%, since each carries the whole design, and falls short as the step closes openings on the way down; a Solid silhouette backer aims at 0%.

Bridges and islands

A bridge is a tab of wood the build adds so a loose piece stays attached. An island is the piece it holds: wood standing inside an opening, like the middle of an O. On the canvas a bridge is a straight bar of even width, joining the island to the wood round it; it is there because Island policy is Auto bridge, the default, and Allow separate piece or Remove problem feature makes none. A bridge made for one sheet is carried up through every sheet above it, where the opening round the island is wider still. Either can be changed one at a time, in the stacked or vector view.

• Tick bridges (N) above the canvas to mark every tab. A tab cut in the same place on several sheets has one marker. Click a marker to refuse that tab: it turns grey, and after the rebuild the piece it held is cut free. Only that piece, and anything standing inside it, which stays tabbed to it so the two come out as one piece: a tab holding another piece nearby is left alone, a piece that was held through the freed one is given a tab of its own, and a tab joining two loose pieces to each other is only that link - the smaller piece is cut free and the larger keeps its own way to the sheet. The check then lists the piece as refused_bridge_island, a warning, because it has to be glued back by hand; a piece cut loose for any other reason is still a floating_island. Click the marker again to take the refusal back; restore N refused puts every refused tab back at once.
• Tick islands (N) to mark every island with a square. Click one to remove the island: its opening is cut as one shape with nothing in the middle, so there is nothing to hold and its tab goes too. A removed island is drawn crossed out; click it again to put it back, or use restore N island(s) for all of them.

Both are settings, so they take effect when you press Rebuild Layers, and they stay with the project for later builds. A refusal that no longer matches a tab — because the artwork or the settings moved it — is ignored.

Features: moving or removing one opening

Every opening cut from your artwork is a feature. Tick feature overlay above the canvas — it comes on by itself when you reach the Layer Editor step — and click any opening. The Features tab below the layer list opens on it, with its size, cut length, the layer it starts on and more.

• Introduce at layer, then Apply, sets the lowest sheet the opening is cut on. It is cut on that sheet and every sheet above, and the sheets below stay solid there, so a higher number makes that one opening shallower.
• Remove from all layers stops cutting it at all, and that area stays wood on every sheet.
• Clear override puts it back to how the build placed it.

Each of these rebuilds the whole stack and runs the check straight away, with no need to press Rebuild Layers, and it is free. It builds with the settings saved now, so it is the stack Rebuild Layers would give you, plus the move. The features you have changed are listed under Manual overrides and are kept through later rebuilds of the same picture — until the mask is cleaned again or painted, which starts the features afresh. A project built before the studio saved its feature map says feature picking needs a rebuild; one rebuild brings picking back.

On Pay as you go a move is free once the picture's first build has been paid for. A picture built during a trial or on Studio has not been, so there a move asks you to press Rebuild Layers first, which shows the price; after that, move pieces as often as you like.

Questions