I was asked to make a triangle wallet that was basically 4 equilateral triangles that fold onto one another. After attempting to figure out how to get precise angles to make each corner 60 degrees I ended up just copy and pasting an image of a triangle from a Google search and then tracing it and then drawing with the line tool from point to point of the traced one(traced objects never have perfectly straight lines) Is there a way to create exact angles? The only thing I noticed was the indicator at the bottom that reads the current angle but it changes if you rotate the item and it goes away once you place the line.
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So you can select how many sides but not the angle of each? Iâm asking about making specific angles.
For regular polygons, those are dependent.
In a regular polygon with n sides:
Interior Angle = (n - 2) Ă (180 / n)
- Triangle = 60 = (3 - 2) Ă (180 / 3)
- Square = 90 = (4 - 2) Ă (180 / 4)
- ⌠and so on
For irregular polygons, the angles are whatever you get based on the layout you want.
To generate a line at an arbitrary angle, draw a horizontal line (parallel to the X axis) of the desired length, use the Numeric Edits toolbar to rotate it as needed, then drag-and-snap it into place on the polygon youâre creating.
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I suggest you to use some free CAD (there are a few), make a sketch of the triangle and set the angles and lenghts as you wish. You can the export the shape as a DXF file into LB or produce a drawing of it and export as svg to LB.
LB does not have the possibility to measure angles.
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This wouldâve worked for this specific project where I needed the equilateral triangle but I was wondering about an angle tool
This is pretty much what I expected, but I wanted to make sure I wasnât missing something. Thank you!
Thanks. This seems like a more complicated process than inputting the angles on a shape generator/calculator. I will still give it a try though
If you knew the degrees you could use the circle array then connect the intersections with the pen tool.
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One way is to draw a line, set the length, go to edit nodes press L to make sure its straight, press A to align horizontally. Then exit out of node edit and set your angle, duplicate and mirror. Use alt to help you connect the three sides.
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I was thinking the same. Iâd probably suggest something parametric such as FreeCAD or Fusion rather than âdumbâ CAD. For simple 2D parametric sketching I think FreeCAD would be simpler to get up and running with as it doesnât require an account to be set up (unlike Fusion).
FreeCAD sketch:
FreeCAD sketch exported as DXF then imported into LightBurn
Hope this helps.
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The âmake a line, duplicate it, then rotate the duplicateâ method is likely the easiest method to make arbitrary angles directly in the LightBurn UI, but you know the classic trope of a student asking their teacher, âWhen will I ever use this?â Well, if you ever asked that about sines and cosines, we found the answer! 
I still use the three trig functions extensively when Iâm designing things. Being able to quickly math out a number using sin/cos/tan and right triangles is a really great skill to have, although with the tools we have available, you donât need to know how to throw algebra around to make things.
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Great for those of you that didnât fail algebra and hence couldnât even go on to geometry.
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