How do I set cut, score and engrave layers in one file?
Laser software decides what to do with a shape from its colour, not from its name. The common convention is a red hairline for cut, a blue hairline for score, and a black fill for engrave. Give every shape one of those three, keep strokes hairline-thin, and one file arrives in the machine as three separate operations you can order and price.
Written by the maker who builds MakerWizardChecked against the app's own code on
The three jobs
| Job | In the file | What the machine does |
|---|---|---|
| Cut | Red outline, hairline stroke, no fill | Goes through the material |
| Score | Blue outline, hairline stroke, no fill | A shallow line on the surface |
| Engrave | Black fill, no stroke | Burns the area away line by line |
Two things that quietly break it
- A thick stroke. Lasers ignore stroke width and follow the centre line, so a 2 mm outline does not cut a 2 mm groove; it cuts one line down the middle. If you want a wide groove, draw the shape you want engraved and fill it.
- A fill on a shape meant to be cut. The software may read it as an engrave and fill the whole thing in.
Order matters at the machine
Run engraving first, then scoring, then cutting. Once a piece is cut free it can shift, and anything engraved after that is out of register. Files exported from MakerWizard are written in that order, and the LightBurn project carries it as layer priority.