Is there a way to make the snapping function more sensitive?? I’m going crazy over here trying to join two lines together. This drawing would seem rather simple for most but I have seriously been trying to figure this out for a few days now. You see the drawing on the left side is is what my drawing is supposed to look like. The problem I’m having is adjusting each line to their specific lengths.
I thought I had a better way by drawing the outside box to size then just position the smaller boxes in the correct location would be fast and easy. Nope, not even close. I can not line up one line on top of another to save my life.
Now some of you will say “just do it in your other program and then import it” that’s all fine and dandy but I’m trying to eliminate using multiple programs and stick with LB, but at this point I have to jump back to Fusion or Illustrator be use my time is coming up on this job.
So if you have any suggestions please reply below. I will greatly appreciate any suggestions.
Jason
I did try those but they really weren’t helping to accomplish what I needed.
Here is the cardboard pattern that I’m trying to draw into Lightburn. It’s 22.250” wide by 18.750” tall. The placement of the 4 boxes is what’s giving me the issue. Like with most patterns, they need to be accurate. This is so I can make acrylic patterns instead or cardboard.
My suggestion would be to do the design in something like Fusion 360 where you have finer control. You can control the placement explicitly in LB but if you were to try to do that on any object that isn’t horizontally or vertically aligned, the math required is pretty complex.
That’s what I’m currently doing but would really like to get away from multiple programs for one task. Currently Google SketchUp is the easiest and quickest way to draw this for me. I start a line with the pen tool, key in the length I want and it creates that line. The line is still attached to the end so next I drag the mouse in the direction I need the next line and key in the length and hit enter, the line is made. It took me 2 minutes to draw that part above. The issue is that is the older version I have and it’s on my old computer.
In LightBurn you can set the snapping distance and grid spacing (found in ‘Settings’ - click “gears” icon to expose) to help with drawing a pattern like this using the ‘Draw Line’ tool. Instead of entering the line length via keyboard as you describe your SketchUp workflow, you can just mouse around and click to the next end-point as you move around to create this shape. Would that work for you?
That would be a decent work around but I’ve tried adjusting the snapping functions but honestly either way I go (up or down) the snapping just doesn’t seem to even function. My current settings are like this. what would you change the scales to, to make it more sensitive.
This will definitely make it harder to have any snap scale adjustment to snap scale reflected in the behavior you are seeing. Turn that ON (green) to allow snapping to the grid.
I did what you suggested, but take a look at the screenshot below. It seems to be snapping to the lines but when I zoom in they’re not actually touching each other. This was the biggest issue the other night where I was trying to place them so I could join the lines and for the life of me I couldn’t get them to touch. So when I tried to make the cut LB was assuming it was just multiple lines and not one continuing closed rectangle. Doe’s that make sense? I even tried selecting all the lines and clicking the “auto-join selected shapes” but without success.
LightBurn currently only snaps nodes to other nodes - not lines. If you need to snap to a line, insert a node by hovering over the line at the point you wish to add the node and hit ‘I’ (Insert). Then you will be able to snap to those new nodes. Ultimately, what you’re trying to do is model a part with dimensions, and LightBurn isn’t really set up for that at the moment. I want to get it there, but it’s not there yet.
Bummer, I was just hoping I was overlooking something. Well that’s honestly the only negative that I’ve found with LB, so I’ll live with it and hope that feature comes sooner than later! Thanks @LightBurn
Jason
I just had this come up in my forum update just as I’m having the same issue with snapping to grid. I just can’t get it to work much at all and have the same frustration. I have snap to grid and snap to objects selected and even played with snap sensitivity. No luck at all! I use SolidWorks CAD most of the time and of course snapping in that is, well, snappy. Enjoying Lightburn at the moment during the trail period but this is a real downer! Like you, hoping this gets sorted as soon as possible.
I realized that with the tools put in place recently to creation snapping that I had nearly everything I needed to do this quickly. I’m testing it now.
It’s been given to the beta testers, and a few things kicked back already that have been addressed. So far it’s working well overall. I think it’ll make it into the release.
