Design Tools
Looking to get creative? LightBurn contains a suite of tools for designing projects from scratch. If you have a background in other design software, many of these tools may be familiar to you — instead of bouncing between programs, you can keep all your laser-design work under one roof.
Creation Toolbar¶
The Creation Toolbar contains all of LightBurn's most essential design tools, including tools to Draw Lines, create Primary Shapes, Create and Edit Text, Edit Nodes, and more.
Transform Controls¶
Transform Controls are tools for directly editing selections in your Workspace by clicking and dragging control handles that alter their position, dimensions, orientation, or shape.
Shape Properties Window¶
The Shape Properties Window shows editable properties of selected shapes. Those properties vary depending on the object, but include Power Scale and Cut Order Priority for all objects, as well as Width and Height for all vectors, number of Sides for polygons, Corner Radius for rectangles, and Max Width for text.
Art Library¶
An Art Library provides a way to store artwork so you can quickly access and reuse it in future projects.
You can load multiple Art Libraries at the same time, and separate Libraries are a great way to split artwork up by theme (holidays, birthdays, animals), or purpose (tests, tools, templates, boxes).
Grouping and Ungrouping¶
The Group tool combines collections of objects into single units, and the Ungroup tool splits Groups back into the individual objects that make them up.
Normally, all objects are independent of one another, and can be manipulated individually. But it's sometimes helpful to treat a collection of things as a single unit, to make sure they keep their relative position and size when you're moving them around.
Lock Shapes¶
The Lock Shapes tool locks selected objects in your design, preventing any form of editing (including moving, resizing, deleting, changing text, and more).
Use Lock Shapes to prevent unintentional design edits, secure graphics used for alignment, preserve templates, and restrict editing in collaborative projects.
Tool Layers¶
There are two colors/layers at the end of the palette labeled T1 and T2. These refer to Tool layers — special layers that have no cut parameters and will never be output to the laser.
Use Tool layers to create non-output shapes in your designs. For example you can use them to:
- Describe the boundary of your material
- Create guidelines for aligning shapes
- Apply a Path to Text without the path being output
- Apply a Mask to an Image
Automatic Guidelines¶
LightBurn features two types of automatic guidelines to help you align objects relative to one another, or along vertical or horizontal planes.
Alignment Guides are temporary visual guides that indicate when an object's edge or center is aligned to an edge or center of another object in your Workspace.
Draggable Guidelines are persistent lines set to the T1 Tool layer — they are perfectly vertical or horizontal by default, and you can snap other objects to them.
Circular Array¶
Circular Array arranges multiple copies of an object — or multiple objects — in a radial pattern around either a point in space, or a central object.
Use the Circular Array Tool to:
- Create organic radial patterns such as mandalas and flowers by duplicating simple shapes
- Create even spacing around a circle, such as numerals and markings on a clock face
- Make geometric radiating designs such as starburts or cogs
- Create decorative round frames or borders
- Distribute mounting holes in a circular formation
Copy Along Path¶
Use Copy Along Path to create repeated designs that follow a line, curve, or perimeter of a shape, for example:
- Decorative borders along, inside, or outside edges of a shape.
- Repetitive designs that flow along a line such as ropes, vines, and chains.
- Precisely-spaced patterns that follow a vector path, for example measurements on a curved ruler.
Apply Path to Text¶
Apply Path to Text attaches text to a vector object, reshaping it to follow the contour of the chosen path. This tool makes it possible to use existing or custom-created paths to apply more complex curves to text than can be achieved using the text Bend tool.
Creative Uses for Advanced Cut Settings¶
You can use settings to achieve some neat and speedy effects. We explore some of them in this video!
For more help using LightBurn, please visit our forum to talk with LightBurn staff and users, or email support.