Drawing

All sizes are in millimetres. The origin is at the bottom left of the material, X points right, Y points up, just as the machine calculates later.

Tools

Freehand and pen

With F or the brush in the toolbar you draw freely: hold the mouse button, move a finger across the tablet or write with a pen (Apple Pencil, Wacom, Surface). When you let go, the stroke is smoothed and reduced to a few smooth points, which you can change afterwards with Edit points (N) like any curve. If the stroke ends where it began, the shape is closed.

A bar appears at the top:

• Smoothing Low, Medium or High: how much the shaking of the hand is evened out. Smoothing follows the screen, so zoomed in you draw finer.
• Pen pressure: with a pen the stroke gets wider with pressure and is cut as an area, like a brush. Mouse and finger always draw a line.
• Width at full pressure in mm; with the lightest touch the stroke is a quarter as wide.

Once a pen has drawn, single fingers no longer draw, so a resting palm makes no strokes. Two fingers zoom and pan the view as usual. Freehand also works with Draw symmetrically.

Eraser

With X or the eraser in the toolbar you remove parts of shapes: wipe over an area, an outline or a line, or click once to punch a hole. When you let go, the whole stroke becomes one step, Ctrl+Z brings everything back. A bar appears at the top:

• Tip Circle (round edges like a cutter), Square (straight edges) or Blade. Dragging the thin blade across a shape cuts it into two parts.
• Size in mm: diameter, edge length or blade length. [ and ] make the eraser smaller and larger.
• Angle rotates the square and the blade.

If something is selected, the eraser only erases within the selection, the shapes next to it stay intact. Without a selection it works on all visible shapes. Locked shapes, shapes on locked or hidden layers and reliefs stay unchanged. The shape keeps its layer and its cut settings; a text becomes a path shape. A shape that is erased completely is deleted.

Draw symmetrically

With Y, the mirror button in the toolbar on the left or Edit → Draw symmetrically, everything you draw with the rectangle, circle, polygon, line, polyline, curve pen or freehand is mirrored as well. A dashed preview shows the mirror image while you drag. A bar appears at the top:

• Left/right mirrors across a vertical axis, Top/bottom across a horizontal one, Fourfold across both.
• Radial repeats the shape around the centre (Count 2 to 36), like a mandala.
• The axes initially cross in the material centre. You can drag the round handle there (it snaps to the grid and the material centre); a double-click or the Material centre button resets it.

Anything drawn across the axis merges with its mirror image into one shape, so half an outline becomes a whole heart. Shapes that are already symmetric on the axis are not created twice. Everything is one step for Undo.

Sculpting reliefs

You don't need a 3D model for a relief: you can build one from your own shapes and keep shaping it with the brush. Both are under Draw → Relief ▸ and in the properties of a relief. It is cut like any relief, see Cutting a relief.

Relief from shape

Select one or more closed shapes (text, circle, motif …), then Draw → Relief ▸ Relief from shape …. The right side of the window shows the shaded result straight away.

• Profile: Dome rounds up from the edge to the widest point, each letter on its own. Cone has straight flanks at the set Angle and a ridge on top; wide areas become flat at the Height. Flat has the full height with an edge rounded over the set Edge width.
• Height: how high the shape rises above the relief floor. Base raises the whole shape with a vertical edge; the profile sits on top.
• Result: New relief creates a relief around the shapes. Merge into relief calculates the shapes into an existing relief. Then choose how: Add puts the shape on top, Subtract carves it in, Higher keeps the higher surface at every point (overlaps merge without bumps), Lower caps the relief inside the shape, Replace uses only the new shape there.
• Don't cut the shapes afterwards: the shapes stay so you can reuse them, but they are no longer cut themselves.

If the relief gets higher than before, its depth grows with it. If it is deeper than the material is thick, the window warns you.

Sculpting with the brush

With G, Draw → Relief ▸ Sculpt relief or Sculpt in the properties you drag over a relief and shape it like clay. A bar appears at the top:

• Raise builds up material, Lower removes it (never below the floor), Smooth evens out edges and ridges, Flatten pulls everything to the height of the point where the stroke starts.
• Size is the brush diameter; the keys [ and ] change it in steps. Strength sets how much each dab does.
• Holding Shift turns raise into lower and the other way round.

The brush is strongest in the middle and fades out softly towards its edge. Each stroke is one Undo step. Locked reliefs and photo engravings are left alone.

Exact sizes

On the right under Properties you find position (X, Y), width, height and rotation of the selection. You can type calculations into any number field: 300/3 or 25+4.5. Up and Down in the field change the value, with Shift in steps of ten. Proportional keeps the aspect ratio.

Arrow keys move selected shapes by 1 mm, with Shift by 10 mm, with Alt by 0.1 mm.

Snapping and grid

While drawing, the pointer snaps to the grid (5 mm) and to corners and centres of other shapes. Hold Alt while dragging to switch snapping off briefly. Set grid spacing and snapping under View or in the settings (Drawing tab). The crosshair with marks in the rulers shows the exact pointer position.

View

• The mouse wheel zooms, with Shift it scrolls sideways.
• Ctrl+0 fits the material, Shift+1 shows all shapes, Shift+2 the selection.
• At the top switch between Drawing, Split and 3D.

Edit and arrange

Copy, paste, duplicate (Ctrl+D), group (Ctrl+G) and undo (Ctrl+Z) work as usual. Delete with Del or, without a keyboard, with the bin below the selection or at the top of Details. On the right under Arrange and in the menu of the same name you align shapes, distribute them evenly, mirror them and rotate, scale or skew them exactly by number, see Arrange. How to merge shapes or create an outline is explained in Editing shapes.

History

Edit → History … (also Ctrl+K “History” or a right-click on Undo/Redo at the top) opens the list of recent steps, named as in the menu, for example “Draw rectangle” or “Move”. At the top is the Start of project; the current state is highlighted. Clicking a step jumps back to it; undone steps are shown struck through below and can be redone with a click until you change something new. The canvas stays usable meanwhile; Esc closes the list. The history belongs to the open project and starts afresh after opening one.