LightBurn Demo 10 – LightBurn Node Editing, Perforation, and Flood Fill Features

The Lightburn Software Series

The Lightburn Software is probably the best generic laser cutting software available (I use it for almost all of my laser work). This series has tutorials, hints and tips as well as the occasional speed comparisons between it and RDWorks. In this video, we take a look at the LightBurn node editing, perforation and flood fill features. My thanks to the team at Lightburn for allowing me to embed their videos.

Contents

A quick demonstration of the new LightBurn node editing feature, the LightBurn perforation cutting feature, and the LightBurn flood fill modes.

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Lightburn node editing, perforation and flood fill - flood fill example shown
LightBurn Node Editing, Perforation and Flood Fill – LightBurn Flood Fill example shown

External Resource Links

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Video Transcript of LightBurn Node Editing

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0:00in this video we’re going to do a quick

0:02walkthrough of some of the new features

0:04of LightBurn node editing so

0:08quickly the built-in shapes in light

0:11burn are we would call primitives they

0:15exist and understand that they are a

0:18circle or a square or an ellipse or

0:21whatever in order to edit these if I go

0:26to node edit mode nothing shows up here

0:30in order to edit these shapes I have to

0:32 convert them first into something that

0:35is editable

0:36this goes for text as well if I created

0:39 a string and try to node edit this I

0:44 can’t do it you have to take these

0:48 shapes and convert to path first because

0:52 that turns them into lines and curves

0:55 and so on with editable points so you

0:58 can quickly do this with more than one

1:00 shape at a time I can select both of

1:02 these for example and say convert to

1:04 path and now these are editable shapes

1:07 as well and you can see I can grab the

1:09 points we marked so among the changes

1:14 that have happened recently I go to node edit

1:17 mode hovering over a point and

1:21 hitting the D key will delete that point

1:24 hovering over a line I’m hitting the D

1:27key will delete the line and it breaks

1:29 the shape when you delete a point if

1:32you’re working with a closed shape it

1:34 keeps the shape closed if you are

1:36 deleting a line it just removes the line

1:38and leaves all of the other pieces

1:39intact

1:40 if I delete a point from the end of an

1:44existing open curve like this one it

1:47will delete this and the other line that

1:49was connected to it because there’s

1:51nowhere for it to go I’m going to delete

1:55this line we can also hit the I key to

2:01insert a point along an existing line so

2:04if I here for example I can extend this

2:07shape if I want to

2:13again hitting D over an existing point

2:17deletes the point if you hit s over a

2:23corner vertex like this hitting s will

2:27smooth that point and it turns the lines

2:30on either side of it into smooth lines

2:33and exposes their control points so you

2:35can move them around if I hit S over an

2:40existing line it converts the line into

2:43a smooth line but it leaves it intact it

2:45leaves the shape alone

2:46so that I can move these control handles

2:49but the the this point wasn’t smooth for

2:53me to begin with it was just that the

2:54line was turned into a smooth line if I

2:57hover over this one and hit s even

3:00though these lines on either side of it

3:03were already smooth it makes this point

3:06a smooth point and you can see that the

3:08point turns into a circle and that means

3:11that these two control handles are now

3:13locked to each other they’re always

3:14going to be in a straight and continuous

3:17line like this so this is a smooth point

3:20and it means that any line traveling

3:24through that point will be smooth and

3:26continuous if I hole or if I hit the C

3:28key over this point you can see that it

3:31turns into a small square and that means

3:33that these two control handles you now

3:35not linked anymore and this is called a

3:37cusp it is a sharp corner of a spline

3:41and so I can make a sharp corner with

3:46lines or smooth curves going into it

3:48again hitting s turns it into a smooth

3:51point hitting the C turns it into a

3:54corner point or a cusp all of this is of

3:59course undoable renewable and so on and

4:02so on and so on I’m going to delete this

4:07line I’m going to show you something

4:09else now so if I create a line if I use

4:14the pen tool and I create a line from an

4:16existing point light burn will

4:20automatically snap

4:21to existing points but it doesn’t do

4:25anything intelligent with that yet

4:29however when you’re in LightBurn node editing mode

4:32if I drag this point and it snaps to an

4:35existing shape when I let go like burn

4:38welds those two things together or

4:40connects them it’s like using the auto

4:42join tool so if you edit Auto joining

4:47selected shapes that’s exactly what’s

4:49happening when I drag two points

4:52together and snap them so you can see

4:54now this has become one continuous shape

4:56and I can do the same thing at this

4:57point if I bring this over here it snaps

5:00and those are now one point so it’s one

5:03closed shape so if you want to create

5:07multiple shapes and connect them

5:09together this is a great way to do it so

5:10I’m going to create a circle duplicate

5:14the circle and move it over here take

5:18both of these shapes convert them to

5:20paths so that I can edit them delete

5:24those two curves by hitting D key and

5:26these two as well and I’m going to use

5:28the pen tool to just draw a line here

5:31draw another line here and then drag

5:37these to snap them together and I’ve now

5:44made a continuous closed shape I could

5:46preview this you can see that it is a

5:48solid shape because if it wasn’t the

5:52scan wouldn’t work I’ve also added

6:00what’s called perforation mode so if you

6:03do work with paper card things like that

6:08where you want to create folding lines

6:11you could do it previously by using just

6:14a low power cut but it’s probably easier

6:18to use a perforation so I’m going to set

6:20this to cut two millimeters and skip say

6:25one meter one millimeter just so you can

6:26see them apart to tell them apart if I

6:29preview this you see like Burton turns

6:34this continuous line into a dashed line

6:36and this is actually what’s going to get

6:38sent to the laser I show the traversal

6:40moves you can see all the little red

6:42traversals in between the nice thing

6:45about having light burden do this for

6:46you is that it’s still planned properly

6:49as a path or a curve so if I put two or

6:54three shapes inside other shapes or

6:59around other shapes and so on so all of

7:01these are set to use that perforation

7:04mode if you look at the order of these

7:07light burn is going to cut the inside

7:09shapes first and then cut the outer

7:14shape even though this is not a

7:17container or not a closed shape when

7:20it’s finished because it’s a closed

7:21shape here like burnt treats it as such

7:23and we’ll plan it accordingly another

7:27useful new feature is a fill mode oh

7:31sorry

7:32flood fill mode if you have a laser that

7:35is relatively slow or you are creating

7:39something like picture frame that has

7:42scanned details on the outside but

7:44nothing on the inside so let’s do create

7:50some circles here paste them into this

7:56frame so this is obviously terrible you

8:01would never do this but that’s okay so

8:03I’m going to set this to scan now on a

8:07normal system like Burton will scan left

8:10to right all the way from the bottom to

8:12the top

8:13now these traversal moves are the ones

8:14shown in red and you can see we’ve got a

8:17lot of traversal here and relatively

8:20little cutting happening because the

8:23laser is scanning all the way across

8:25from left to right and back again over

8:28this shape that’s got a lot of empty

8:30space in the middle for a laser that

8:33moves very quickly this is probably not

8:36an issue unless you’re doing something

8:37quite large for slower systems diet

8:41based lasers things like that this would

8:42be quite a problem and it would add an

8:45awful lot to your cutting time

8:47so labor now has what’s called

8:49flood-fill scanning if I enable that and

8:52then show the preview even if I turn on

8:56traversal moves you can see there’s very

8:57little in terms of traversal happening

9:00here and the reason for that is Mike

9:04Byrne is scanning back and forth across

9:06these things and here it’s skipping over

9:10and filling this area because these

9:13things are close enough there’s a

9:15threshold that it uses to decide whether

9:18or not two things are close enough to

9:20warrant keeping them together in one

9:22continuous move or not and so it’s going

9:27to scan up at the top and come down the

9:30bottom or down the side sorry and then

9:33it’ll go and fill in the last few

9:35details that it missed if I increased

9:38speed of this cut to say 200 and then

9:44rerun that preview now these things are

9:47close enough that it’s going to catch

9:49them all in one go

9:51because the laser is moving faster like

9:53Bernie knows that it’s quicker probably

9:55to jump across this gap and keep going

9:58then it would be to change direction and

10:01go back later if I set this slower down

10:05to 50 millimeters a second now very few

10:12of these are going to be filled in all

10:15at once and you can see it’s going to

10:18skip past those and then go and fill

10:22them in on the way back so laser fill

10:28mode is useful for filling in shapes

10:32that have large areas of white space

10:34where you want to avoid traversing

10:37around traversing across the white space

10:39if you have a laser that moves fairly

10:41quickly

10:41I wouldn’t recommend using this unless

10:44you time it and make sure that it is

10:47actually faster than just using a

10:49standard scan you might be surprised at

10:53how often it ends up being slower if you

10:55have a quick laser

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Last updated August 26, 2021

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