LightBurn Demo 18 – Trim / Extend

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. My thanks to the team at Lightburn for allowing me to embed their videos. This session concentrates on the Lightburn Trim Extend Features.

Contents

A quick walk through of the Trim and Extend functionality for node editing in LightBurn.

With your artwork loaded, select the Edit Nodes icon to the left of the screen:

  • Pressing S while hovering over a node gives a Smooth corner node
  • Pressing S while hovering over a line converts a line to a smooth curve
  • Pressing L while hovering over a curve converts a a curve to a line
  • Pressing C while hovering over a node converts a smooth node to a corner
  • Pressing D while hovering over a node deletes the node
  • Pressing D while hovering over a line deletes the line
  • Pressing I while hovering over a line or curve inserts a node point
  • Pressing M while hovering over a line or curve inserts a node at the midpoint
  • Pressing B while hovering over a point breaks the shape at that point
  • Pressing T while hovering over a line, trims back that line to the next intersection
  • Pressing E while hovering over a point, extends that line until it intersects with another shape
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Lightburn trim extend features
Lightburn Trim Extend Features

Transcript for LightBurn Trim Extend Features

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0:00 one of the more frequently requested

0:02 features in lightburn has been the

0:04 ability to edit a path within relation

0:07 to other shapes and paths in your own

0:09 design now in other software that may be

0:12 called something like scissors or snip

0:13 but in lightburn it will be part of the

0:17 node Edit functionality so we’re going

0:20 to know that it mode and as you can see

0:21 here only this one Square has nodes that

0:24 can be manipulated that is just simply

0:28 because these other shapes have not been

0:31 converted to path so this is just a

0:32 quick reminder you can go back into

0:33 selection mode right click and choose

0:36 convert to path now that we go back to

0:38 no data mode you can see all of these

0:41 shapes have nodes that can be

0:43 manipulated in this case let’s say that

0:45 I want to remove this corner out of the

0:47 square and I want it to basically just

0:50 cut everything from this intersection

0:52 point to this intersection point now

0:53 that is what the node edit trim

0:55 functionality is specifically for I can

0:58 hover over these paths hit the T button

1:00 on my keyboard and as you can see it’s

1:02 found this intersection and this

1:04 intersection and removed everything in

1:06 between there it’ll basically fan out in

1:09 both directions from the point in that

1:11 you were hovering on over the path this

1:13 also works with curves on the outside

1:18 and on the inside and will even work on

1:21 something like this where the

1:22 intersection is really just on or very

1:25 near the line but not actually crossing

1:28 the path so I can do that this also

1:31 works with more complicated curves like

1:33 this Bezier curve that has an actual

1:35 self intersection right at this point I

1:38 can remove this here and I can even

1:40 remove the path on this side as you can

1:43 see it finds this intersection and then

1:45 the self intersection up here and

1:47 removes it from there and you’ll notice

1:49 that the control points on curves will

1:51 move about as these trims happen but

1:56 note that the curve itself is not

1:58 actually changing shape it’s just that

1:59 we’re having to subdivide the curve and

Video Transcript for Lightburn Trim Extend Features (Cont…)

2:01 remove everything else which will change

2:03 the control points now this will even be

2:08 smart enough to if you have a design

2:09 like this now this looks like this

2:12 actually intersects or

2:14 comes very close to it and it does come

2:16 very close but does not actually touch

2:18 if you zoom in you can see that here

2:21 it’s not actually touching the line

2:22 we’ve made it however to be smart enough

2:24 to infer that visually this looks like

2:27 it’s intersecting so you can still do a

2:29 trim with no problem so that brings us

2:32 to the last little bit of extra function

2:35 honor that we’ve added onto the trim

2:36 which is extend so in this case let’s

2:40 say we go back to these shapes and I’ve

2:42 got this square that I’ve trimmed off

2:44 but now I want this path to go from here

2:47 up to the top easy enough you just hover

2:49 over any node that is a termination

2:53 point to the past so like this node for

2:55 example would not work because it it

2:57 would not be able to infer which

2:58 direction you want to go but on this one

3:00 I can hover over this node hit the e key

3:03 and it’s gonna find the nearest

3:05 intersection along that sort of

3:07 imaginary path and then extend the line

3:09 to that point this also works with

3:11 curves so let’s take this one and we’ll

3:13 move it out and just for examples sake

3:17 I’m gonna move out this control point

3:18 you’ll see why in a second so if I click

3:21 on this ending node and hit E again

3:23 that’s going to extend it but in the

3:25 case of curves it actually adds a new

3:27 line as opposed to extending the

3:29 existing line and that line is extended

3:32 along the slope of the control point so

3:36 that’s really all for the treatment

3:37 extend functionality this should be in

3:40 the next release of lightburn and we

3:43 hope you all liked it thanks