Laser cutting
Boxes, enclosures and living hinges that fit together first time, sized by their material.
Parts cut from sheet on a laser (or a CNC router or waterjet): boxes and enclosures joined by their own joints, living hinges, signs and gears, with the leads and tabs the cutter needs.
What you can design
13 parametric designs come in the library's Laser cutting folder (File › Run Parametric…): open one, type your sizes and the drawing follows. Open any of them in the viewer to try it.
The trade's tools
For a drawing whose industry is Laser cutting, the toolbar and Edit › Tool offer these tools beside the general drawing, editing and dimensioning tools. Each is parametric: change a size, or move a point it was drawn on, and what it made follows.
Hole Pattern
Holes on a bolt circle (PCD), in a row or in a grid, measured from an edge.
On the toolbar's Holes button
Slot
A slotted hole: between two points, or round a centre at a length and angle.
Tab (micro-joint)
Tabs (micro-joints) left uncut in a cut, to hold the part in the sheet.
On the toolbar's Bridge or Tab button
Lead-in and lead-out
A lead-in and lead-out in the waste, where a closed cut starts and ends.
Finger joint
An edge cut into box-joint fingers and slots.
Living hinge
Staggered slots that let a band of sheet bend.
Mortise and tenon
A tenon on an edge and the mortise it goes into.
Bridge
Bridges in a die's rules: where clicked, spread along a rule, or cleared.
On the toolbar's Bridge or Tab button
Edge Notch
A V or U notch cut into an edge.
On the toolbar's Notch button
Fixing Holes
Fixing holes in a sign's corners and along its sides, or round it.
On the toolbar's Holes button
Routing Inset
A border routed a distance inside a shape.
On the toolbar's Allowance button
Outline Text
Lettering cut as its outlines.
Stencil Bridges
Bridges holding a stencil letter's islands.
Exports
File › Export › Export… lists these formats first for a Laser cutting drawing:
And the formats every trade uses:
Machine profiles
File › Send Using Machine Profile sends the drawing to a machine in one click, with the format, options, layer names and pens it needs. These come with the app:
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Emulator: CNC (G-code)
G-code
ParametrIQ machine emulator
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Emulator: laser (LightBurn)
LightBurn Projects
ParametrIQ machine emulator
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Emulator: laser (SVG)
SVG for Glowforge and xTool
ParametrIQ machine emulator
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Laser CAM by colour (DXF)
DXF and DWG
CO2 and fibre lasers whose software sorts by colour (RDWorks, LightBurn's DXF import, LaserCut, Trotec Ruby, Epilog)
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LightBurn laser (project)
LightBurn Projects
CO2, diode and fibre lasers run by LightBurn (Ruida, Trocen, TopWisdom, GRBL, Galvo)
Reports
File › Reports… works these out from the drawing, to save as a web page or as CSV:
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Laser job time and cost
How long a laser takes, layer by layer and in all.
Read more
The help's page for the trade describes each tool, design, report and export in full.
Other trades
Get ParametrIQ CAD
Included in every plan. Install it, activate it, and start with File › New or File › Run Parametric…