Chapter 1
Getting started
Making an account, downloading and installing Carvect Pro, the trial, buying a license and getting it onto your computers, and keeping the application up to date.
Carvect Pro runs on Windows and on macOS. One license covers both, so a Windows machine in the workshop and a Mac at home can share it.
- Windows
- Windows 10 or 11, 64-bit.
- macOS
- macOS 13 Ventura or later, on Apple silicon (M1 or newer). Intel Macs are not supported.
- Memory
- 8 GB is comfortable for 2D and 2.5D work. Give it 16 GB if you rough large 3D models often.
- Graphics
- Any graphics card with OpenGL 2.1. The 3D view and the cutting simulation draw through it. Without it, drawing and 2D toolpaths still work and only the 3D preview is lost.
- Internet
- Needed to sign in, activate a computer, redeem a key and download updates. Once a computer is activated it runs without a connection.
The machines it writes programs for are 3-axis routers and mills: X, Y and Z, with the tool vertical. Parts can be cut from both sides by flipping the stock. Rotary axes, 4-axis and 5-axis work and lathes are outside what it does.
Start here. You need an account to download Carvect Pro, and the same account later holds your license: it is what lets one license work on your second computer, and it is where a purchase is recorded. Making one is free, needs no card, and starts you on the trial.
On the website
- Go to carvect.com and choose Sign in, then Create an account, or go straight to carvect.com/register.
- Enter your Name, Email and a Password of at least 8 characters.
- Press Start the trial. You land on your account page, signed in.
In the application
If someone else downloaded the installer for you, you can make your account from inside the application instead.
- Choose Help ▸ Account & License…, then Sign in….
- Open the Create account tab.
- Fill in Name, Email and Password and press Create account.
Either way, a new account starts on the free trial. If the email address is already registered you are told so; sign in instead.
Signing in, and a forgotten password
Sign in to the application from Help ▸ Account & License… ▸ Sign in…, using the Sign in tab. Pressing Enter in the Password box signs you in. When you sign in, the application immediately takes one of your license's two computer places for this computer (see Two computers per license, below).
If you have forgotten your password, use Forgotten your password? on the website's sign-in page. Enter your email and press Send the link. The email contains a link that works once and expires after an hour; it opens a page where you choose a new password and are signed in.
Downloads come from carvect.com/download. Anyone can open that page, but downloading an installer needs the account you made in the previous step.
- Go to carvect.com and choose Download.
- If you are not signed in, sign in. (If you skipped the previous step, Create an account to download takes you there.)
- Press Download .exe for Windows or Download .dmg for macOS. The version number is printed beside each button.
The Windows file is called CarvectPro-<version>-setup.exe and the macOS file CarvectPro-<version>.dmg.
- Run the downloaded
.exe. - If you are allowed to install for everyone on the computer, the installer offers that; otherwise it installs for your own user account. Either works.
- Choose the folder. The default is
Program Files\Carvect Pro. - On the options page, tick Create a desktop shortcut if you want one, and leave Open .cvc project files with Carvect Pro ticked so double-clicking a job opens it.
- Press Install, and on the last page leave Launch Carvect Pro ticked to start it straight away.
The Start menu gets two entries, Carvect Pro and Uninstall Carvect Pro.
- Open the downloaded
.dmg. A window appears with the Carvect Pro icon and a shortcut to your Applications folder. - Drag Carvect Pro onto Applications.
- Eject the disk image and open Carvect Pro from Applications or Launchpad.
Carvect Pro opens on its Home page: a greeting, your recent files, your projects and a set of cards for the usual first jobs (set up your machine, choose a post-processor, load your cutters). Nothing needs to be done here before you start. Press New Job to go to the workspace, where the Setup stage and the Job Setup form are waiting.
You do not have to sign in to the application straight away. Until you do, it runs as the trial, which does everything except write G-code. Sign in with the account you downloaded with when you want to take up a license (see Getting the license into the application).
The trial is the whole application with one thing held back: writing G-code. You can draw, import, set up 3D models, make every kind of toolpath, run the simulation, print a job sheet and save your work. When you press Export G-code… you are told that G-code is the one thing the trial keeps back, and offered Buy a license… or Not now.
The trial does not expire and needs no card. Anything you make on it is saved in the ordinary way, so after you buy, the same job file exports without being redone.
The coloured badge at the right-hand end of the ribbon shows where you stand. It reads Trial in amber until a license is active, and then Licensed · Pro. Click it to open the Account & License window.
There is one product at one price. The license is perpetual, it covers two computers at a time and any number of CNC machines, and it includes twelve months of updates.
- Sign in on carvect.com. Your license is attached to the account you are signed in with, so use the one you will sign in to the application with.
- Go to Pricing and press Buy Carvect Pro. The checkout opens over the page with your email filled in.
- The price is shown in your currency, before tax. Tax for your country is worked out and added in the checkout.
- Pay. Payments are handled by Paddle, who also send the receipt.
When the payment goes through you arrive on a thank-you page. Your license appears on your account within a minute or two, and we email you the license key as well. If it has not arrived, look in your spam folder before anything else.
If the application is signed in to the account you bought with, it only has to ask the server.
- Open Help ▸ Account & License… (or click the Trial badge).
- Press Check again. The window reports "Up to date — Pro" and the badge changes to Licensed · Pro.
If you prefer to use the key from the email:
- Open Help ▸ Account & License…. If it says Not signed in, sign in first with the email you bought with. A key belongs to the account it was bought on, and a key typed into a different account is refused.
- Press Enter a license key… and paste the key from your receipt.
- You see "License updated — thank you."
Export G-code now writes files.
This window is the one place in the application that deals with your license. Open it from Help ▸ Account & License…, from Settings ▸ Account ▸ Account & License… on the ribbon, or by clicking the license badge.
From top to bottom it shows:
- The plan (Trial, or Pro) and what that means.
- Who you are signed in as.
- On a licensed copy, the License key, masked because this window tends to end up in screenshots. Show reveals it and Copy puts it on the clipboard. Below it, the date your included updates run to.
- Computers: how many of your two places are in use, one row per computer, with a Release button on each.
- This computer's id, with a Copy button. You only need this for a computer without internet access.
The buttons along the bottom:
- Buy a license…
- Trial only. Opens the pricing page in your browser.
- Activate offline…
- For a computer with no internet connection. See below.
- Check again
- Asks the server for your current license. Use it after buying, or after freeing a computer place elsewhere.
- Enter a license key…
- Redeem the key from your receipt email.
- Sign in… / Sign out
- Signing out returns this computer to the trial and removes its license file, so a shared computer cannot go on exporting after you leave. It does not release the computer's place. Use Release for that.
- Close
- Closes the window and refreshes the badge.
A license is installed on two computers at a time. A computer takes its place the first time it signs in with a licensed account. When both places are taken, a third computer that signs in stays on the trial and the window tells you why.
To move the license to a new computer, free a place first. You can do that in two places:
- In the application, on the computer you are leaving: Account & License ▸ Release beside its row. Releasing the computer you are sitting at asks you to confirm, and deletes its local license file.
- On the website, on your account page, under Computers: press Free seat beside the computer. This is the one to use when the old computer is dead or gone.
Then press Check again on the new computer.
Copying Carvect Pro's settings folder to the new computer, or bringing them across with a migration tool, does not bring the license with it. The settings are locked to the computer they were made on, so the new computer starts signed out on the trial. Sign in there, and release the old computer if it still holds a place.
If a license is activated on an unusually large number of different computers in a short time, further computers are held on the trial and the message asks you to write to support@smepoint.com. Replacing a computer now and then never runs into this.
A workshop computer that is never connected can still be licensed. It needs a license file made for it, which you carry over on a USB stick.
- On the offline computer, open Help ▸ Account & License… ▸ Activate offline… and note This computer's id (32 characters). Copy puts it on the clipboard if you can save it to a stick.
- On any computer with internet access, sign in at carvect.com and open your account page.
- Under Activate a computer with no internet, type the id into Computer id, give it a name such as "Bench PC", and press Issue license.
- On the page that follows, press Download license file, or copy the text in the box. If you copy it by hand, take all of it including the two lines of dashes.
- Back on the offline computer, in the Activate offline window, press Load from a file… and pick the file, or paste the text into the box.
- Press Activate. You see "License accepted — this computer is licensed."
Issuing the file takes one of your two computer places, just as activating online does. The file does not expire and does not need the website to exist, so keep a copy somewhere safe. If you lose it, the License file button beside that computer on your account page issues it again without taking another place.
A license file only works on the computer it was issued for. Paste one into a different computer and you are told it belongs to a different machine.
Sign in on the website and choose Account. The page has these panels:
Profile- Your name, email and the date you joined. Change your name and Change your password open small forms in place. On a bought license, Email my license key again re-sends the key to your address. Your email address is where keys, receipts and password resets go; to change it, write to support@smepoint.com from that address.
- License
- The plan, the masked key with a Copy button, whether the license expires (it does not), the date updates run to, and how many computer places are in use.
- Computers
- Every activated computer with its date, a License file button and a Free seat button.
- Activate a computer with no internet
- See the section above.
- Orders
- View your orders lists every purchase. Each order has its own page with the license key, what you paid, and an Invoice button that opens a printable invoice. Use your browser's Print command to save it as a PDF.
- Downloads
- The installer for each platform, as on the download page.
Choose Help ▸ Check for Updates…. The window says which version you have and asks the server what is available.
- Under Choose a version to install you see the newest release and the two before it, each with its date, size and release notes. The newest one you are entitled to is already selected. You can pick an older one; installing an earlier version is supported, which helps if a new release does not suit a job in progress.
- Press Download & Install. The progress bar shows the download, and Cancel download stops it.
- When the download finishes you are asked whether to open the installer. Press Open.
- You are then asked whether to quit Carvect Pro so the installer can replace it. Press Yes. Anything unsaved is offered to you first.
- On Windows, the installer replaces the old version in place. On macOS, drag Carvect Pro onto the Applications folder in the window that opens and choose Replace.
Updating keeps your projects, settings, machines, tools, post-processors and license. On Windows the installer's last page before installing says so, and names the version being replaced.
Your license includes twelve months of updates from the date you bought it. A release published after that is shown with the reason it is locked. The version you already have keeps working, and every version released inside your twelve months stays yours to install.
Where your own files and settings live
The application keeps its settings, libraries and logs outside the program folder, which is why updating and reinstalling leave them alone.
- Windows
%LOCALAPPDATA%\CadCam\ (the folders Config, Data, Logs and Cache).- macOS
~/Library/Application Support/CadCam, with logs in ~/Library/Logs/CadCam and caches in ~/Library/Caches/CadCam.
Your job files are wherever you save them. Projects default to a Carvect Projects folder inside Documents.
Chapter 2
The workspace
The Home page, the ribbon and its four stages, the panels either side, the 2D and 3D views, projects and files, preferences and the built-in help.
Home is what you see when the application starts, and the Home button at the left of the top toolbar brings it back at any time. Press it again to return to your work. The ribbon is hidden while Home is showing.
The left rail has the ways into a job: New Job, Open… and New from Template under Start, and New Project…, Open Project… and Sample Jobs under Projects. When a machine is active its name and travel are shown there with a Change machine button. Back to design appears when you have a job open to return to.
The main area lists your projects and your recent files. The recent list can be filtered by name or folder and shown as a list or as cards; a file that has been moved or deleted is tagged MISSING. Below that are cards for first-time setup (your machine, a post-processor, your cutters, a template, an imported drawing, your preferences) and links to the guides and downloads on carvect.com.
From the top down:
- The toolbar. Home, a New/Open menu, a Save menu, an Export menu (Export G-code (All)…, Export Selected…, Job Sheet / Report…), Undo and Redo. At the right-hand end, a readout shows what the application is doing ("Ready" when idle).
- The ribbon. The Stage button at its left end, the command groups for that stage, and the license badge at the right.
- The side bar for double-sided jobs. Only on a double-sided job: Side 1 (Front) and Side 2 (Back) buttons, and Show other side, which draws the opposite face faintly and mirrored so you can line features up across the flip.
- The workspace. A column of panels on the left, the 2D and 3D views in the middle, a column of panels on the right.
- The status bar.
The Stage button at the left end of the ribbon shows the current stage in capitals. Click it to choose another. There are four:
Setup- The machine, the job's stock, the tool and material libraries, and importing.
Design- Drawing, editing, arranging and measuring vectors, and placing 3D models.
Manufacture- Toolpaths, the simulation, the checks and G-code output.
Settings- View options, the colour theme, preferences, and your account.
A job normally moves through the first three in order. Choosing a stage changes the ribbon to that stage's commands, and also brings the most useful side panel forward: Setup shows the Job Setup form, Design shows Properties if the drawing has anything in it.
Each group on the ribbon has a heading. A heading with a ⌄ after it opens a card of commands, arranged in small labelled sets. Tool Database, Material Database, Select and Preferences are single commands and act straight away.
Leaving the Design stage cancels whatever drawing tool was active. Leaving Manufacture closes any toolpath form you had open without saving it.
The left column has four tabs down its edge:
- Setup
- The Job Setup form. See the Setup chapter.
- Sheets
- The sheets in the job, for double-sided work and layouts that span several boards.
- Layers
- The layers on the active sheet.
- Profiles
- The shipped library of 3D reliefs and 2D outlines.
The right column has six:
- Toolpaths
- The list of operations, with the simulation controls underneath when a preview is running.
- Properties
- The selected object's position, size and settings. Toolpath forms open here too.
- Nesting
- Settings for packing parts onto the sheet.
- Tools
- The tool library, for picking and checking bits.
- Materials
- The material library.
- Transform
- Orientation, scale and position for an imported 3D model.
Drag the edge of a column to make it wider; the width is remembered. The chevron (❮ or ❯) on a column's outer edge collapses it, and clicking any of its tabs opens it again. The maximize button at the top right of the views collapses both columns at once, and Ctrl+Shift+M (⌘⇧M on a Mac) does the same.
The centre has two tabs, 2D and 3D. The 2D view is where you draw and select. The 3D view shows the stock, any 3D models, and the toolpaths as lines at their real depths, and it is where the simulation plays.
In the 2D view, roll the mouse wheel to zoom about the pointer, and drag with the middle button to pan. + and − zoom too. Home or 0 fits the whole job into the window, as does View ▸ Reset 2D View (Ctrl+0). Rulers along the top and left edge show the job's units.
In the 3D view:
- Drag with the left button to orbit.
- Drag with the middle button, or hold Shift and drag with the right button, to pan.
- Drag with the right button to roll.
- Roll the wheel to zoom.
- Click a face of the navigation cube in the corner to look straight at that side, or press Iso for the three-quarter view.
The Reset view button beside the tabs frames the job in 2D or returns the 3D camera to its starting angle, whichever view is showing.
The left end names the job, with a dot before the file name when there are unsaved changes, and the project it belongs to if it is in one. Beside it is the active machine. When the stock is bigger than the machine's travel this turns red and says by how much, for example "job exceeds travel (X 1300>1220 mm)", so a job too big for the bed is obvious long before you get to it.
The middle of the bar shows short messages: the result of the last command, and a one-line description of whatever the pointer is over. The version number is at the far right.
A project is a folder on your disk that holds a job and everything that goes with it. Carvect Pro marks it with a small file named project.carvect and creates three folders inside it: Designs for jobs and the drawings they come from, Imports for models, vectors and photographs as they arrived, and G-code for what goes to the machine. Because it is an ordinary folder, you can copy it, back it up, or open it in Finder or Explorer.
To make one, choose File ▸ New Project…, type a name, and pick where the folder should go. It starts in Documents, in a folder called Carvect Projects.
File ▸ Open Project… adds an existing project to your list. Pointed at a folder that holds several projects, it adds them all. Pointed at an ordinary folder of work, it asks whether to make it a project, which adds the project file and the three folders and moves nothing.
Projects are listed on the Home page. Click one to see its files. Clicking a job or drawing opens it, clicking a model or picture imports it into the current job, and anything else (G-code included) is shown in Finder or Explorer. Rename… changes the name shown for the project; the folder keeps its name on disk.
While the open job lives in a project, Save As starts in its Designs folder and Export G-code starts in its G-code folder.
File ▸ Create Sample Jobs… builds a project of worked examples: one job for each kind of toolpath, and three parts that use several operations together in the order a shop would run them. They are ordinary jobs. Open them, change them, cut them.
A Carvect job is a .cvc file. It holds the whole job in one file: the drawing, the toolpaths, the tools used, the stock and the machine.
- File ▸ New
- An empty job, with no stock yet. Set up the job before drawing.
- File ▸ New from Template…
- A job with a template's stock, machine and staged operations already in place.
- File ▸ Open…
- Opens
.cvc jobs, and also .svg and .dxf drawings, which open as a new job. A DXF is read as millimetres. - File ▸ Open Recent
- The last few files you opened. The number kept is set in Preferences.
- File ▸ Save / Save As…
- Saves the job. A name typed without an extension is saved as
.cvc. Save As can also write .svg or .dxf, which keeps the vectors on the active sheet and nothing else.
When you start a new job, open another, or quit with unsaved changes, you are asked whether to save them first.
Only one copy of the application runs at a time. Starting it again, or double-clicking a .cvc file, brings the running window forward and opens the file in it.
While autosave is on (it is, unless you turn it off in Preferences), the open job is written to a recovery file every 60 seconds. A normal exit deletes that file. If the application did not close cleanly, the next time it starts it asks whether to restore your unsaved work. Yes loads it, marked as unsaved so you remember to save it properly; No discards it.
Open Preferences from File ▸ Preferences… (on macOS it is in the Carvect Pro application menu), from Settings ▸ Preferences on the ribbon, or from Home.
- Default units
- Millimetres or inches, for new jobs.
- Autosave
- Turns crash recovery on or off.
- Autosave interval
- How often the recovery file is written, in seconds. The default is 60.
- On exit
- Whether to ask about unsaved changes when you close.
- Context help
- The hover cards on forms and the descriptions on buttons. Turn it off once you know your way around.
- Feeds & speeds
- Set feeds and speeds from the material fills a new operation's feed, plunge and spindle speed from the job's material and the chosen bit. The same switch is Machine ▸ Auto Feeds & Speeds.
- Plunge rate
- Keep the plunge rate within what the bit can take is the second tick box under Feeds & speeds. It lowers the plunge rate for thin bits in hard material. It only ever lowers it.
- Recent files kept
- 1 to 50. The default is 10.
- Undo history steps
- How far back Undo goes. The default is 500, and 0 means unlimited.
- Selection colour
- The colour selected shapes are drawn in.
Changes take effect when you press OK.
The colour theme is set separately, under Settings ▸ Theme. There are eleven, from Paper (the default) and Studio Light to the darker Graphite, Carbon and Hybrid Dark, and the 2D and 3D views follow the theme. The grid, guidelines and Dynamic Input are switched in the View menu or under Settings ▸ View.
Hover over any ribbon button, menu item or form field and a card explains it: what it does, what changes if you alter it, and what zero means where zero is special. The same short description appears in the status bar. Toolpath and setup forms also keep a larger card on the panel that follows the field under the pointer. On a job in inches, the measurements in the help are given in inches.
The Help menu holds Account & License…, Check for Updates…, Open-Source Licenses… and About Carvect Pro. The Home page links to the guides and the full feature list on carvect.com.
Chapter 3
Setup
The machine, the piece of stock, the cutters and the materials. Everything later in a job is measured from what is entered here, so it comes first.
Two things decide whether a correct drawing turns into a correct part. The machine decides how far the tool can travel, how fast it may move, and what form the G-code file takes. The job decides where zero is: every depth is measured from its Z zero and every position from its XY datum. Get either of them wrong and a perfect toolpath cuts in the wrong place, to the wrong depth, or not at all.
You can change the setup later. Toolpaths made before the change are then flagged as out of date, and Manufacture ▸ Operations ▸ Recalculate All rebuilds them.
Job Setup describes the material you are cutting, not the drawing. It is the Setup tab in the left-hand column, and it is shown whenever you choose the Setup stage. Fill in each card and press Apply. The application then moves you on to the Design stage.
A new job has no stock, and its width, height and thickness boxes are empty. Nothing can be drawn until the job has been applied with a size.
- Machine
- The machine this job will be cut on. Built-in machines are marked "(built-in)". It sets the travel the job is checked against, the feed limits, and the post-processor that writes the G-code.
- Job Type
- Single sided cuts from the top only. Double sided adds a second face, cut after the stock is turned over. See Double-sided jobs below.
- Job Size
- Width (X), Height (Y) and Thickness (Z) of the stock, and Units (mm or inches). X and Y are the sheet as it lies on the bed, seen from above.
- Z Zero Position
- Material surface or Machine bed. This is where you will touch the tool off, and every cut depth is measured from it.
- XY Datum Position
- Which corner, or the centre, is X0 Y0. It is the point you jog the machine to before pressing start. Use offset moves the origin away from that point by the X and Y you type.
- Modeling Resolution
- How fine the grid behind 3D models and the simulation is, from Draft (fastest) through Normal, High (3× slower) and Very High (7× slower) to Maximum (15× slower). It affects 3D work and the preview only. 2D vector cutting is exact at any setting.
- Material
- What the stock is (MDF, plywood, oak, maple, walnut, pine, acrylic, aluminium, brass or steel) and the Colour it is drawn in. The material is the starting point for feeds and speeds.
Measure the stock before typing its thickness. Sheet goods are rarely their nominal size, and a profile cut to 18 mm through a sheet that is really 17.5 mm leaves no skin while one cut to 18 through a sheet of 18.4 leaves the parts attached.
Front-left is the usual datum because it is the corner you can see and reach. Centre suits round or symmetrical work. Whatever you choose here has to match what you do at the machine.
Material surface is the common choice for Z zero. It copes with a sheet that is not quite its nominal thickness, because depths are measured from the face you actually touched off. Choose Machine bed when the thickness left under a pocket matters more than the depth from the top.
Changing the size later
You can reopen Job Setup at any time, change the size and press Apply again. The Job ▸ Job Setup… window also has Scale existing drawing to fit the new job size. Leave it off when the drawing is a real object at its true size, and turn it on when the drawing is artwork that should fill whatever stock you have.
The Job Setup Wizard
Job ▸ Job Setup Wizard… asks the same questions over four pages, one subject at a time. It produces the same result as the form.
A machine in Carvect Pro holds what the application needs to know about the real one: its travel on each axis, the post-processor that writes its files, and the limits of its spindle and feed. A few generic machines are built in. Setting up your own takes a few minutes and pays for itself on the first job.
Open Setup ▸ Machine ▸ Machine Library… (also in the Machine menu, and the Change machine button on Home).
- Select the built-in machine closest to yours and press Duplicate. Built-in machines cannot be edited or deleted, so you always work on a copy.
- Give it a Name.
- Under Travel min and Travel max, enter the travel on X, Y and Z. These are what the envelope check compares every job against.
- Choose its Post processor. See Post-processors below.
- Under Spindle & feed, enter Max RPM, Min RPM, Max feed and the machine's Rigidity. A value of 0 uses the default for that kind of machine. Automatic feeds never exceed these limits.
- Tick Automatic tool changer only if the machine changes bits by itself. Without it, a job that uses more than one bit is exported as one file per bit.
- Optionally choose a Machine model (STL) so the 3D view shows your machine.
- Press Save, then Set as active.
The Machine Builder — verify by jogging panel moves a marker inside the machine's travel in the 3D view. Jog each axis in the + direction; if the marker moves the opposite way to your machine, flip that axis's Direction in the table. Export… and Import… move a machine between computers as a small file. Reset Defaults removes all your own machines and restores the built-in set, so use it with care.
To change the machine for the job in hand, use the Machine card in Job Setup or Setup ▸ Machine ▸ Set Active Machine…. The status bar shows the active machine at all times.
The envelope check
Whenever the stock is larger than the machine's X or Y travel, the machine name in the status bar turns red and gives the axis and the numbers. When you export, the toolpaths themselves are checked against the travel on all three axes and you are warned about anything outside it. Both checks use the active machine, so they are only as good as the travel you entered.
The same toolpath has to be written differently for different controllers. A post-processor is the set of rules that does that. Each machine names the post it uses, and Setup ▸ Machine ▸ Post Library… is where the posts live. Four are built in.
As with machines, duplicate a built-in post to change it. The settings are:
- Name, Key, Description
- How the post is listed, the short id it is saved under, and a note about what it is for. Changing the key of a saved post breaks jobs that refer to it.
- Units
- Whether the file is written in millimetres or inches. This is what the machine expects, and it is independent of the units the job was drawn in.
- Arcs (G2/G3)
- Write curves as arc moves. Off, every curve is broken into short straight moves, which works on any controller.
- Arc IJK absolute
- Whether arc centres are given from the origin or from the start of the arc. If arcs come out as wild loops on a machine that otherwise runs fine, this is the setting to look at.
- Line numbers
- Number each line, with the start, step and wrap-around value (N start and the maximum).
- XYZ dp
- Decimal places for coordinates. Three is normal in millimetres, four in inches.
- Comments
- Whether operation and tool names are written into the file, and in which bracket style.
- File ext
- The extension exported files get.
- Line ending
- Windows (CRLF) or Unix (LF).
- Modal motion
- Leave out a motion word when it has not changed from the line before. Smaller files; turn it off if a file misbehaves part-way through.
- Header, Footer, Tool change
- The blocks written at the start, the end, and at each tool change. Header 1st toolchange says the header already loads and starts the first tool, so no separate tool change is written for it.
Preview… shows a sample program written with the settings as they stand. Set as default makes a post the one new machines use.
Before cutting anything with a new or edited post, export a short job and compare it with a file you know runs on that machine. The units line and the arc settings are the two that cause most trouble.
Every toolpath is cut with a bit from the tool database. Open it with Setup ▸ Tool Database.
The bits are listed in a tree: Milling (end mills, ball nose, bull nose, V-bits, engraving, tapered mills, tapered ball, round-over and cove, surfacing), Hole Making (drills, centre drills, spot drills, reamers, counterbores, countersinks) and Other. A picture of the selected bit is drawn from its dimensions, and the dimension you are editing lights up on it.
Each bit has these groups of fields:
- Identity
- Name, Tool Type and Notes. The type decides which toolpaths accept the bit and how the simulation draws it.
- Geometry
- Diameter (D), Shank Ø, Flute length, and where they apply the Included angle and Tip Ø of a V-bit or tapered bit, and the Corner (sharp, rounded or hollow) with its Corner radius.
- Cutting Parameters
- Pass depth (the most this bit should cut in one pass) and Stepover, as a percentage with the length worked out beside it.
- Feeds and Speeds
- Spindle speed, Feed rate and Plunge rate, with the resulting Chip load shown so you can check it against the maker's figures. The Material and Machine boxes above decide which set of numbers you are looking at, because the same bit runs at different speeds in MDF and in aluminium.
- Tool Number & Vendor
- The Tool number, Vendor and Part number, kept with the bit for your records and for reordering.
Use Add, Duplicate and Delete to manage the list and Apply to save your changes to a bit. Measure your bits. A cutter sold as 6 mm is often 5.95 mm, and on a fitted joint that difference shows.
To start with a full library, choose Manufacture ▸ Tools ▸ Load Default Bits (Metric) or Load Default Bits (Imperial). The shipped sets hold 63 metric and 57 imperial bits covering the common shapes and sizes. The Tools tab in the right-hand column has Export… and Import… buttons for moving a library between computers. Importing asks whether to Merge the file into your library or Replace it.
A bit has general-purpose numbers. What it should actually run at depends on what it is cutting, and that belongs to the material. Setup ▸ Material Database holds the materials.
A material has a Name, a Kind, the usual Thickness, Width and Length of the stock you buy, a Colour and Notes. Below those is a grid, Cutting defaults, per tool type: for each type of bit, and for a given bit diameter, the Feed, Plunge, Spindle speed, Stepdown and Stepover.
Load shipped materials adds a set of 21 woods, sheet goods, plastics and soft metals, with starting numbers for each. Edit them to suit your machine as you learn what it likes.
Automatic feeds and speeds
With Machine ▸ Auto Feeds & Speeds on (it is on by default, and the same switch is in Preferences), choosing a bit in a toolpath fills its feed, plunge and spindle speed from the job's material and that bit, and holds them within the active machine's limits. The numbers come from published chip-load figures. They are a starting point. Your machine's stiffness and the sharpness of the bit are not in the calculation, so listen to the cut and adjust.
A second setting, Keep the plunge rate within what the bit can take, lowers the plunge rate for small bits in hard material. It never raises anything.
A template saves the setup you use most: the stock you buy, the machine you own, the tools you reach for and the operations you always run. Starting a job from one skips the setup.
File ▸ New from Template… starts a job from a template. Setup ▸ Machine ▸ Template Library… manages them. Two are built in, a sign-making setup in MDF (mm) and a plywood cut-out setup in 3/4 inch sheet (inches).
To make your own, set a job up the way you like it and press New from Current Job in the Template Library. A template holds a Name, Notes, the Machine and Post, the Job setup, a list of Default tools and Pre-staged operations. Set as default marks the template you use most, and the library opens on it. Apply to New Job starts a job from it straight from the library.
Pre-staged operations wait under Toolpaths ▸ Staged Operations until you have drawn something for them to cut. Select the shapes and apply them from there, or clear the list if you do not need them this time.
A job can hold more than one sheet: the two faces of a double-sided job, the boards of a sliced 3D model, or several boards in one layout. Each sheet has its own stock, its own drawing and its own toolpaths.
The Sheets tab in the left-hand column lists them. + adds a sheet, − removes the selected one, and Rename names it. Click a sheet to make it the active one. Show all sheets in view (also View ▸ Show All Sheets) draws every sheet at once so you can see how they relate.
Some parts need cutting from both faces: a sign with a pocket on the back, a tray with feet, a carving finished on both sides. Choose Double sided under Job Type in Job Setup. Two more settings appear:
- Flip Direction Between Sides
- How you will turn the stock over: Flip left ↔ right (about the Y axis) or Flip top ↔ bottom (about the X axis).
- Zero off same side
- Keep one Z zero for both sides, set on the same physical face. When it is on, you do not re-zero after the flip.
The bar above the views now shows Side 1 (Front) and Side 2 (Back). Click one to work on that face. Each face has its own drawing and toolpaths. You draw Side 2 as you will see it once the stock is turned over, and Show other side draws the opposite face faintly, mirrored, so you can line features up through the board.
Export handles the mirroring. See Exporting a double-sided job in the Output chapter.
Changing a double-sided job back to single sided asks which side to keep, and deletes the other side's drawing and toolpaths.
Nesting packs parts onto the sheet to waste as little as possible. Select the parts and choose Arrange ▸ Nest Parts… or Manufacture ▸ Output ▸ Nest Parts…. The Nesting tab in the right-hand column holds the same settings.
- Tool Dia. (D)
- The bit the parts will be cut out with. Parts are kept at least this far apart so the cutter fits between them. Set it to the largest bit any profile uses.
- Clearance (C)
- Extra space between parts on top of the tool diameter.
- Border Gap
- How far parts stay from the edge of the sheet. Leave room for clamps.
- Rotate parts to find best fit
- Allow parts to be turned, in steps of the Rotation step angle. Turn it off for material with a grain or a printed face.
- Mirror parts to find best fit
- Allow parts to be flipped over. Only safe when the two faces of the part are the same.
- Allow parts inside other parts
- Let small parts sit in the holes of larger ones.
- Nest two-sided parts
- Keep a double-sided part's two faces aligned when it is moved.
- Remove original parts
- Delete the parts from their old places once they are nested. Leave it off on a first try so you can compare.
- Sheet Options
- The corner packing starts from, and whether rows fill Along X or Along Y.
- Use bounds layer
- Nest inside a shape you have drawn on a layer instead of the whole sheet, to avoid a damaged area, a knot or a clamp.
- Copies
- How many of each part to place.
Press Preview to see the layout and the utilisation figure, and Reset Preview to try again. Nesting packs by each part's bounding box. Toolpaths already made from the parts need recalculating after they move.
Chapter 4
Design
Drawing and importing the shapes the toolpaths will follow, and editing, arranging and checking them.
Everything you draw or import is a vector: lines, arcs and curves joined end to end. A vector whose ends meet is closed and encloses an area. One whose ends do not meet is open.
The difference matters when you make toolpaths. A pocket, a V-carve or an inlay needs a closed shape, because it clears or carves an area. A profile runs around a closed shape to cut it out. An engraving or a fluting follows the line itself and is happy with open vectors. If a toolpath comes out empty or strange, Design ▸ Modify ▸ Highlight Open Vectors is the first thing to try: it marks every shape whose ends do not meet.
Drawings imported from other programs often look closed and are not, by a fraction of a millimetre. Weld / Close Gaps… repairs that.
Choose Design ▸ Select, or press Esc to put down whatever drawing tool you are holding.
- Click on a shape's line, or inside a closed shape, to select it.
- Hold Shift and click to add shapes to the selection or take them out.
- Drag across empty space to select everything the box touches.
- Ctrl+A (⌘A) selects everything.
A selected shape shows handles. Drag a corner handle to scale in proportion, an edge handle to stretch in one direction, the centre to move it, and the curved arrows at the corners to rotate. Right-click for a menu of the common edits.
The status bar gives the selection's perimeter and area. The Properties tab shows its exact position and size, which you can type into.
Selecting areas instead of shapes
Where shapes overlap, you may want to machine one of the pieces they make rather than a whole shape: the part of a rectangle that a circle does not cover, for instance. Turn on View ▸ Select Areas and click inside the area you want. Shift-click adds more areas, and clicking empty space clears them. The drawing itself is not changed. Toolpaths that work on areas offer this in their Vectors card.
The drawing tools are under Design ▸ Draw, and in the Design menu. Each has a single-letter shortcut.
Line (L)- Click the start and click the end, or drag from one to the other. Each pair of clicks makes one separate line.
Polyline (P)- A run of connected straight segments. Click each point, and double-click or press Enter to finish. A polyline is left open; to close it, use Join Vectors or Close by Extending Ends.
Rectangle (R)- Drag from one corner to the opposite corner.
Circle (C)- Click the centre, then drag or click out to the radius.
Arc (3-pt) (A)- Click three points the arc passes through. Use it when you know where the curve must go.
Arc (centre) (D)- Click the centre, then the start of the arc, then its end.
Bézier (B)- A smooth curve you shape by dragging its control handles.
Text (T)- Click where the text should go. See Text below.
Press Esc to abandon the shape you are drawing. The tool stays active so you can draw another; choose Select to put it down.
There are no polygon or star tools. The Profiles tab has a library of ready-made 2D outlines, stars, polygons and frames among them, that can be dropped onto the job and sized.
Snapping
As you move the pointer near an existing shape, its end points, midpoints and centres are marked, and the pointer snaps to them. It also snaps to the corners and edges of the job and to the grid (10 mm). View ▸ Show Grid shows or hides the grid.
Typing exact sizes
With Dynamic Input on (View ▸ Dynamic Input, or F12), a box follows the pointer while you draw and you can type the size: length and angle for a line, width and height for a rectangle, radius for a circle. Press Enter to accept. The setting is remembered.
For a shape at an exact position, use Draw Line (exact)…, Draw Circle (exact)… or Draw Rectangle (exact)…. Each opens a small form: a line's start point, length and angle; a circle's centre with its radius or diameter; a rectangle's corner, width and height.
Choose Text (T), click where it should start, and fill in the form: the Text, the Font (any font installed on the computer), the Style and the Height. To set the text along a curve, select a single open vector first (a line, arc, polyline or curve) and tick Lay out on selected vector.
Text stays editable until you convert it. V-carving and engraving work on its outlines either way. Convert Text to Curves turns it into ordinary vectors that no longer depend on the font. Do it before sending the job to a computer that may not have the font, and before editing individual letters.
Fillet / Dog-bone… changes corners. Choose Fillet (round corners) to round them to a radius, or Dog-bone (corner relief) to cut a small notch into each inside corner. A round cutter cannot make a square inside corner, so a square peg will not seat in a milled pocket; the dog-bone notch gives its corner somewhere to go. Apply it to All corners of the selection, or choose Pick corners on the canvas and click the ones you want.
Offset Vector… makes a parallel copy of a shape at a set Distance, Outward (grow) or Inward (shrink), with corners kept Sharp or Rounded. It changes the drawing, and the result can be machined or offset again. A profile toolpath's offset is separate and leaves the drawing alone.
Under Design ▸ Arrange:
Group / Ungroup- Bind shapes so they move, turn and scale together (Ctrl+G), and split them again (Ctrl+Shift+G).
Array…- Repeat the selection. Linear places a row of copies at a set spacing and direction, or spread along a total length. Circular places them round a centre, which you can type or pick on the drawing, over a total angle.
Align to Job- Left, Right, Centre H, Top, Bottom, Middle V or Centre, against the edges of the stock.
Align to Selection- The same seven, against each other.
Assign to Layer…- Move the selection onto another layer.
Design ▸ Inspect has three tools. Measurements are notes on the screen and are never machined.
Measure Distance- Click two points. It snaps to end points, midpoints and centres.
Measure Angle- Click to set out two directions and read the angle between them.
- Measure Arc
- Click where a span of an arc or circle starts, sweep round, and click where it ends. You get the included angle, the length along the curve, and the radius, diameter and centre of the circle it lies on.
✕ Hide measurement clears the result from the view.
Each sheet has layers, listed in the Layers tab on the left. Buttons along the top add, delete, move up, move down and rename layers. On each row you can change the colour, show or hide the layer, and lock it so its shapes cannot be selected.
Layers are more than tidiness. Hidden and locked layers are left out of Resize to Fit Job, area picking only sees what is shown, and nesting can use a layer as its boundary. Putting the parts, the cut-outs and the reference artwork on separate layers pays off later in a job.
With a shape selected, the Properties tab on the right shows its position and size, and the fields that belong to its kind: the ends of a line, the centre and radius of an arc, the text and font of a text object. Type a value and press Enter to change it.
The import commands are on the Import card of both the Setup and Design stages, and in the File menu.
Import SVG…- Brings the artwork in as editable vectors, at its true size, centred on the stock. If it arrives at the wrong size, check the units the drawing was saved with; Resize to Fit Job will fit it to the stock.
- DXF
- Open a DXF with File ▸ Open…. It opens as a new job, and its dimensions are read as millimetres.
- Import Image…
- Places a picture (PNG, JPEG, BMP, GIF or TIFF) on its own layer, sized to about nine-tenths of the stock. Use it to trace over by hand, or as the source for a Photo V-Carve or Sketch Carving.
- Import 3D Model (STL)…
- See the 3D models chapter.
Trace Image to SVG
Trace Image to SVG… turns a picture into vectors. It works best on clean, high-contrast artwork such as a logo or a line drawing; a photograph traces into a mass of contours.
- Choose the picture.
- Under Pick up as vectors, choose By shade to split the picture into light and dark, or By colour to pick out one colour you click on.
- For shade, move the Shade threshold until the highlight covers the shapes you want and nothing else. Pick lighter side traces the light areas instead of the dark ones, which is what white lettering on a dark background needs. For colour, click the picture to set the Target colour and adjust the Colour tolerance.
- Set Smoothness / simplify: raise it until the outline starts to lose detail, then come back a step. Round corners suits organic artwork; turn it off for lettering and anything with real corners.
- Raise Ignore specks smaller than a little to throw away scanner dust and JPEG speckle, each of which would otherwise become a tiny shape and a plunge.
- Leave Also add vectors to the design on to put the result straight into the drawing, and save the SVG.
The Profiles tab on the left holds a library of ready-made ornaments, grouped by kind and searchable with the Filter box. There are two sorts in the one list: 3D reliefs (domes, petals, mouldings and the like) that the 3D toolpaths carve, and 2D outlines that any 2D toolpath can follow. The tooltip on each says which it is.
Double-click an item, press Place on job, or drag it onto the drawing to put it where you drop it. Reliefs go on a layer called "3D Profiles" and outlines on "2D Profiles". A placed relief can be moved, resized and made to stand more or less proud with the Transform settings. Save as SVG… writes an outline out as a file.
Chapter 5
3D models
Bringing in an STL model, turning it face up, sizing it, deciding how deep it sits in the stock, and slicing a model too tall to cut in one piece.
A 3-axis machine can only reach a surface from above. So Carvect Pro treats a 3D model as a surface seen from the top: at each point, the highest part of the model is what gets cut, and anything underneath an overhang is left solid. Choosing which face points up is therefore the first decision, and the most important one.
The 3D toolpaths (see the Toolpaths chapter) then rough the bulk away and finish the surface. The fineness of the grid the model is sampled on is the Modeling Resolution in Job Setup.
- Set up the job first, with the real thickness of the stock you will carve.
- Choose Design ▸ 3D Model ▸ Import 3D Model (STL)… (it is also on both Import cards and in the File menu) and pick an
.stl file. - The Transform tab opens on the right and the model appears in the 3D view, live, as you change the settings. Nothing is added to the job yet.
- Set it up as described below, then press Position & Import.
A very dense mesh is simplified as it comes in, to about the precision the machine can cut, and the status bar says so. A model clicked in a project's file list is imported the same way.
A model rarely has exactly the height of the stock. 3D Model ▸ Model Position & Z-Plane… sets how the two fit together. It shows five numbers, and the three distances always add up to the stock thickness:
- Stock thickness
- From Job Setup, shown for reference.
- Model height
- How tall the model is once scaled. Changing it scales the height only and leaves the footprint as it is. This is the depth of relief you will carve, so it affects carving time more than anything else here.
- Gap (model top → stock top)
- Material left above the model's highest point. A small gap gives the finishing pass somewhere to start and hides a board that is not quite flat. Zero puts the model's peak at the surface.
- Carve height (plane → model top)
- How much of the model is above the Z plane. Only this part is carved.
- Floor (stock bottom → Z plane)
- Material left below the plane, which comes out as a flat floor.
If the model is deeper than the stock, raise the Z plane. The lowest part of the model is cut off and the rest keeps its detail. When the model is still deeper than the machine can reach, the 3D toolpath forms warn you.
The Properties tab shows the result as a sentence ("Carving 12.5 of the model", "The bottom 3 is left as the floor"), which is a quick check that the numbers mean what you think.
A model with a million triangles slows every calculation and the preview, and most carvings do not need that much. Select the model and choose 3D Model ▸ Reduce Mesh…. You are told how many triangles it has and asked what percentage to keep. A quarter is a sensible first try. Recalculate any 3D toolpaths afterwards.
Some models are too tall to carve in one piece: taller than the machine's Z travel, longer than the cutter's flutes, or thicker than any board you can buy. 3D Model ▸ Slice Model… cuts the model into horizontal layers. Each layer is carved from its own board and the boards are glued back into the whole.
- Slice thickness
- The thickness of each slice, set to the boards you actually have. The model's height rarely divides evenly, so one slice comes out thinner.
- Measure from the top
- On, slices are measured down from the top and the odd thin slice is at the bottom. Off, it is at the top. Put it where the model has least detail.
- Number of equal slices
- The other way to divide it: say how many slices and the thickness is worked out.
- Slice heights
- Every slice, bottom first. Select one to move its top, add a cut, or delete one to merge two. You can drag a cutting plane in the section view, or double-click to add one. Use this to keep a glue line from running through a fine detail.
- Boundary vector round each slice
- Draws the outline of the material in each slice on that slice's sheet. Profile around it to free the layer.
- Skin under each slice
- Extra thickness added to each board (1 mm to start with). Profile the boundary to the slice's own thickness and the skin holds the layer in place while it is cut, with no tabs to leave stubs on the glue face. Plane or sand the skin off afterwards and the glue face is true.
- Where the slices go
- A sheet each gives every slice its own sheet with its own stock thickness, which is the usual choice. Alternatively they can be laid out side by side on the current sheet.
The form warns you when a slice is thicker than the active machine can cut, and lets you carry on in case the job is meant for a different machine.
The original model stays in the job on a sheet called "Source model", so a job cut into three slices has four sheets. Keep it as a reference or delete it. Nothing registers the slices for you when gluing, so glue from the bottom up and line each layer up on its outline.
The Profiles tab includes a library of 3D reliefs (domes, petals, mouldings and more) that need no STL file. Drag one onto the drawing, or double-click it. It lands on the "3D Profiles" layer. Select it to change its position, its size and how far it stands proud in the Transform settings, then cut it with the 3D toolpaths like any other model.
Switch to the 3D tab. Orbit with the left mouse button, pan with the middle button (or Shift and the right button), roll with the right button and zoom with the wheel. The navigation cube in the corner turns the view to a face with one click, and Iso gives a three-quarter view. View ▸ Show 3D Models hides and shows the models, which helps when you want to look at the toolpaths on their own.
Chapter 6
Toolpaths
How a toolpath is made, the settings every one shares, each 2D, carving and 3D strategy in turn, and managing the list of operations.
Chapter 7
Previewing before you cut
Watching the job carve on screen, taking the waste away to see the part, and the checks worth running before the file goes to the machine.
A toolpath drawn as lines over the design tells you where the bit goes. It does not show you what is left afterwards. The simulation does: it carves a block of the job's material, pass by pass, with the real shape of each bit, and what you see at the end is the part the machine will make. A profile on the wrong side of the line, a pocket too deep, a V-carve that runs out through the back of the board, tabs that are not where you wanted them: all of these are obvious in a preview and expensive at the machine.
Previewing works on the trial too.
Every toolpath is drawn over the design as soon as it is made. In the 2D view you see the path from above. In the 3D view the lines sit at their real depths, which is the quickest way to check that a cut goes as deep as you meant. Hide toolpaths you are not interested in with the eye in the Toolpaths list.
The commands are under Manufacture ▸ Simulate, in the Toolpaths menu, and as buttons under the Toolpaths list.
Simulate All Toolpaths- Carve the whole job, operation by operation.
- Simulate Visible Toolpaths
- Carve only the operations whose eye is on. Quicker when you want to check one pass.
- Simulate Selected Toolpath
- Carve only the operation selected in the list.
Show Final Result (no playback)- Carve everything at once and show the finished shape, without the animation. The fastest way to check the result.
- Back to 3D View
- Clear the carved block and show the model, vectors and toolpaths again.
The view switches to 3D and the Carving Simulation panel appears under the Toolpaths list. It shows "Preparing…" for a moment while the block is set up.
- ↺ Reset
- Rewind to the uncut block.
- ✕ Exit simulation
- Stop and go back to the ordinary 3D view.
- Scrub bar
- Drag to any point in the job.
- ⏮ and ⏭
- Jump to the start, or straight to the finished part.
- ◁ Op and Op ▷
- Jump back or forward one operation.
- ▶ Play
- Play or pause.
- Speed
- From 0.1× to 8×. At 1× the whole job plays in about 18 seconds, however long it would take on the machine.
- Loop
- Replay continuously.
- Show toolpath
- Draw the toolpath lines over the carving.
- Show vectors
- Draw the design over the carving. Turn it off to see the bare cut.
- Show rapids
- Draw the moves through the air between cuts: retract, traverse and plunge.
- Draw tool
- Show the bit moving as it cuts.
The Cut by legend lists each operation with its colour in the carving, and the one being cut is shown in bold. A plate at the top-left of the 3D view gives the operation, the tool, the tool's position, the feed and the spindle speed as the job plays.
If you change a toolpath while a simulation is loaded, the panel says "Toolpaths changed — press Play to rebuild".
When the job cuts right through the board, the simulation knows which pieces have come free. Double-click a piece of waste in the 3D view to lift it off and see the finished part on its own. Tabs are treated as already snapped, so a part cut out on tabs drops free of its surround.
Undo drop puts back the last piece and Restore waste puts back all of them. Replaying the simulation restores them too. If nothing has been cut free yet, you are told so; double-click on the waste itself and not on the part.
Photo saves a picture of the carving as it stands, as a PNG or JPEG. It is handy for showing a customer what they will get before any material is cut.
Manufacture ▸ Simulate ▸ Estimate Time adds up how long the job will take: time spent cutting, in rapid moves, dwelling and changing tools, and the total. It works from the feed rates in the toolpaths, and assumes rapid moves at 3000 mm/min and 15 seconds for each tool change.
Treat it as a guide. A path full of short moves takes longer on a real machine than the arithmetic says, because the machine never reaches full speed between corners.
Check Gouges looks at every cutting move in the job.
- With nothing selected, it checks that every cut stays within the stock.
- With a shape selected, it also checks that nothing cuts outside that shape, allowing for the radius of the bit (an outside profile is meant to run wide of its line by that much).
"Nothing cuts where it should not" means the job passed. Otherwise each operation that strays is listed with what it does wrong.
Job Sheet / Report… makes a summary of the job to take to the machine or hand to whoever runs it: the job and its material, every toolpath in the order it runs with its tool and depths, the tools used with their tool numbers, and the estimated time. Save HTML… saves it as a file you can open in any browser and print.
When you edit a shape that a toolpath was made from, or change the job setup, the toolpath is flagged ⚠ recalc in the list and keeps its old moves until you rebuild it. The simulation and export both use what the toolpath holds, so recalculate before you preview for the last time. Recalculate All does every one at once.
Chapter 8
Output and the first cut
Writing the G-code file, what the export window offers, double-sided jobs, and running a new job safely at the machine.
- Check the status bar. The machine named there is the one the file will be written for.
- Recalculate anything marked ⚠ recalc in the Toolpaths list.
- Choose Manufacture ▸ Output ▸ Export G-code… for every toolpath, or Export Selected… for just the one selected in the list. Both are also in the toolbar's Export menu and in the Toolpaths menu.
- The Export G-code window opens with the program in a preview pane.
- Press Save G-code… and choose where to save it. In a project, the window starts in the project's G-code folder.
On the trial, step 3 stops with a message instead. Everything up to it works.
- Controller
- The post-processor the file is written with. It starts on the active machine's post. Changing it here affects this export only.
- Units
- Controller default uses the post's units. Millimetres or Inches overrides them for this file.
- Preview
- The program as it will be saved. Scroll through it to check the header, the first tool change and the first moves.
- Files
- One file writes the whole job as one program. One file per bit writes a program for each bit, in the order they cut: toolpaths that follow each other with the same bit share a file. One file per toolpath writes each operation as its own program. Files are named by their place in the sequence and their name, and the button reads Save files… and asks for a folder.
The file extension comes from the post.
Before writing, every move is checked against the active machine's travel. If anything is outside it you see Outside machine envelope, with each axis that overruns and by how much, and the choice to export anyway. Say no unless you know the machine setup in Carvect Pro is wrong. The check is only as good as the travel entered for the machine.
A double-sided job is cut in two setups, so each face is exported as its own program. Export asks which to write: Side 1, Side 2 or Both. Side 2 is mirrored for the flip automatically, about the axis you chose in Job Setup, so you draw it as it will look and the program places it correctly after the board is turned over.
The same box reminds you how to zero Z. With Zero off same side on, keep the Side 1 zero and do not re-zero after the flip; Side 2 is offset by the stock thickness. With it off, zero on each side's own surface.
Run Side 1, turn the board over about the chosen axis, clamp it with the same datum corner in the same place, and run Side 2.
A new job, a new machine or a new post deserves a dry run.
- Load the file on the machine's control.
- Zero X and Y at the job's datum: the corner (or centre) you chose in Job Setup, plus any offset.
- Set Z about 20 mm above where it should be, and run the program in the air. Watch that it traces the shapes you expect, in the right place, at sensible speeds.
- Stop, re-zero Z on the surface you chose (the top of the material, or the bed), and run it for real.
Keep the job sheet beside the machine. It lists each operation and its tool in order, which is what you need when the program stops for a tool change.
Chapter 9
Problems and shortcuts
What to check when something does not work as expected, how to reach us, and the keyboard shortcuts.
The Design tools are greyed out. The job has not been set up. A new job has no stock; fill in Job Setup and press Apply.
An imported SVG is tiny, huge, or off the stock. SVG files carry their own units and not every program writes them the same way. Select the drawing and use Resize to Fit Job, or Scale in 2D… if you know the size it should be.
A pocket or V-carve comes out empty, or fills the wrong area. The shape is probably open. Use Highlight Open Vectors, then Weld / Close Gaps… or Join Vectors. If shapes overlap, check the toolpath's Overlapping vectors setting, or use Select Areas.
Text looks different on another computer. The font is not installed there. Convert the text to curves before moving the job.
The simulation is slow, or the 3D view is sluggish. Lower the Modeling Resolution in Job Setup while you work and raise it for the final check. For a large STL, use Reduce Mesh….
The model covers the carving. Turn off View ▸ Show 3D Models, or press Back to 3D View and then Show Final Result.
Nothing drops when I double-click. Only pieces that have been cut free can be dropped, and the double-click has to be on the waste itself.
Export says G-code is kept back. This copy is on the trial. Buy a license or, if you already have one, open Account & License and press Check again.
The machine moves 25.4 times too far, or too little. The file's units are not what the machine expects. Check the Units setting in the export window and in the post.
Arcs come out as loops or wild curves. Check Arc IJK absolute in the post, or turn Arcs (G2/G3) off so curves are written as short straight moves.
The control rejects every line. Try the other Line ending, and check that the Comments style is one the control accepts.
The cut is in the right shape but the wrong place. The machine was zeroed somewhere other than the job's XY datum. Check the datum corner and any offset in Job Setup.
"This license is already installed on 2 computers." Release one: in the application on that computer (Account & License ▸ Release), or on your account page on carvect.com (Computers ▸ Free seat). Then press Check again.
"That license key belongs to a different account." Sign in with the email address you bought with, then enter the key.
"This license was issued for a different machine." An offline license file only works on the computer whose id it was made for. Issue one for this computer's id from your account page.
Updates show as locked. The release came out after your included year of updates. The version you have keeps working.
I bought, but the application still says Trial. Make sure the application is signed in with the email you bought with, and press Check again. The license can take a minute or two to reach your account after payment.
A reinstalled computer counts as a new one. This happens when the computer's id could not be read from its hardware (the Account & License window says so). Release the old entry on your account page to free its place.
Start it again. If autosave was on, it offers to restore your unsaved work. If a problem repeats, the log files in the application's Logs folder (see Where your own files and settings live in Getting started) are what we need to see.
Hover over any control for an explanation of it. The guides on carvect.com go into the reasoning behind feeds, tabs, V-carving and clearing in more depth. For anything else, write to support@smepoint.com from the address your license is registered to, and say which version you are running (Help ▸ About Carvect Pro) and on which system.
On a Mac, use ⌘ where Ctrl is shown.
Files and editing
- Ctrl+N
- New job
- Ctrl+O
- Open
- Ctrl+S
- Save
- Ctrl+Shift+S
- Save As
- Ctrl+Z
- Undo
- Ctrl+Shift+Z
- Redo
- Ctrl+C, Ctrl+X, Ctrl+V
- Copy, cut, paste
- Ctrl+D
- Duplicate
- Ctrl+A
- Select all
- Delete
- Delete the selection
- Ctrl+G
- Group
- Ctrl+Shift+G
- Ungroup
- Ctrl+Q (⌘Q on a Mac)
- Quit
Drawing
- L
- Line
- P
- Polyline
- R
- Rectangle
- C
- Circle
- A
- Arc through three points
- D
- Arc from its centre
- B
- Bézier curve
- T
- Text
- Esc
- Abandon the current shape
- Enter
- Finish a polyline, or accept a typed value
- F12, or Ctrl+Shift+D
- Dynamic Input on or off
Views
- Mouse wheel
- Zoom
- Middle button drag
- Pan
- Left drag (3D)
- Orbit
- Right drag (3D)
- Roll
- + and −
- Zoom in and out
- Ctrl+0
- Fit the job in the 2D view
- Ctrl+Shift+M
- Hide or show both side panels
Carvect™
The Account & License window
