Help center

Set this to the paper colors you actually own. More colors look finer but cost more paper and complicate assembly. Islands may add another sheet of an existing color, but never a new color.

Color clustering groups by color and suits most images, two-color art included. Tonal peaks suit art in three or more flat shades. They read lightness only, so colors of similar lightness share a layer. Equal area suits black-and-white photos and smooth gradients. Equal brightness splits lightness into even steps and keeps the original contrast.

This sets the real physical size, and with it what the minimum detail and minimum paper width mean in millimeters. Check your frame or material size before you start.

Filters out fragments too small to cut or glue. Raising it gives a cleaner pattern at the cost of detail.

Limits the narrowest strip of paper. Too small and it snaps while cutting, weeding or assembling. Softer material and blunter blades both call for a higher value.

Keeps an unbroken border around the piece so every layer stays one whole sheet, and gives you stable ground for aligning, framing and gluing.

Sets which end of the color or tone range sits at the front. If the relief looks inverted, flip this before redoing every other setting. When neither end gives the order your picture needs, arrange the layers yourself.

Cuts down the specks that image texture produces. Photos usually need more of it; crisp-edged illustration usually needs less.

Reduces outline anchors and smooths jitter. Too high and the shape itself changes; raise it a little if a complex image gets sluggish.

Merges outline points that sit too close together, so the cutter isn’t constantly turning over tiny distances.

Decides which turns must stay sharp. It protects directional detail like petal tips, star points and letter strokes.

Higher precision means more accurate edges and small areas, at the cost of time and memory. Try at the default, then raise it for the final export.

X and Y place the shape on the canvas; W and H set its size. With the ratio lock on, changing one side changes the other proportionally. These numbers are canvas coordinates. The real physical size follows from the finished width.

Drag the dot above a shape to rotate it. Hold Shift while rotating to snap in 15° steps, which helps when you want level, upright or regular angles.

Smoothing applies only to free-drawn paths. The higher it goes, the softer the transitions. To keep a petal tip, a star point or a turn in a letter, mark that anchor as a sharp corner. Too much smoothing washes out detail.

Select a free path and click Manage anchors in the Selected shape panel. Whole shape merges anchors that sit closer together than the distance you set, which tidies up dense imported outlines. Part of the path works on one section only: click a start anchor and an end anchor on the same outline, and press Tab or click the other side to switch sections. Apply merges close anchors inside that section. Delete points between removes every anchor between the two you chose, so the two ends join directly. With smoothing at 0 the join is a straight line; above 0 it follows a gentle curve. It takes effect at once and can be undone. The button stays unavailable until both anchors are chosen, or when the outline would be left with fewer than three points.

L01 is the deepest sheet, furthest back; higher numbers sit closer to the front. Moving a layer changes the final stack. When framing, start at the highest number and work down to L01.

Bridge width is a real physical measurement, not screen pixels. Too narrow and it breaks while cutting, weeding or assembling; too wide and it visibly changes the pattern. Set it against your finished size, paper thickness and what your blade can do.

These two drive the light and depth simulation in the 3D view. They affect the preview only and never change the cut outlines in your SVG or PNG.

A reference image is there to trace over, and its opacity only changes how visible it is while you work. It sits outside the artwork SVG and never enters SVG.zip or PNG.zip.

After importing you can move, scale proportionally and rotate before confirming placement. An SVG carrying real units (mm, cm or in) comes in at 1:1. One without physical units gets a sensible starting size based on its content and the canvas proportions. With Split into new layers, each group becomes its own layer and its filled shapes are paper. A layer drawn only as outlines does not say which side is paper, so the editor shows it both ways and you pick Holes or Paper before placing. With Place on current layer, choose what the shapes come in as: Cut Out makes holes and Add Paper adds paper. If a layer comes out the wrong way round, open its menu in the layer list and choose Swap paper and holes.

Keep bridges, mark where they are and hide bridges all change the preview only. Hiding a bridge does not change the downloaded file. To actually remove them from the export, tick “remove bridges on download”.

This recalculates and genuinely changes the exported geometry rather than just hiding the bridges. Without them, islands can lose their position and angle, so decide how you will assemble first and keep the bridge location map from the download.