From a programmer's perspective, you can think of Cuttle as a direct manipulation vector editor (like Inkscape or Adobe Illustrator) that can be driven with parameters and JS code where you need it.
Unlike my previous research projects, this is a commercial startup mostly catering to laser cutting small businesses, though you can use it for anything where you want a 2D vector editor + some programmatic capabilities.
I'll try to answer questions that come up in this HN thread.
Thank you for sharing your work Hannah! Very cool stuff!
Cuttle is v cool, congratulations! I had previously seen Apparatus and liked it, so I can clearly see the genetic resemblance now ;)
I’m wondering how many of you are on the team, and does it actually support you as a business yet? Even for a quite niche-y app Cuttle deserves to be better known, and higher-priced, imo.
Thanks for the suggestion! Yes, we should do this. I've been seeing more and more people use Cuttle for 3D printing (exporting a DXF, then bringing that into another program to extrude and output a STL).
Hey, I've just spent an hour creating my first design with Cuttle - and I'm very impressed! You're right that it has a very short learning curve, especially coming from a hobbyist CAD and programming background.
A few random thoughts/questions/suggestions (and apologies if I've missed options or existing functions):
* Would it be possible to add edge snapping?
* Could there be a slicker way to switch from the central origin for shapes? (Central is frustrating as it means having to change position every time I tweak the size.) Being able to easily select an arbitrary corner as the origin with a click would be great; maybe even auto-selecting the origin based on snapping two shapes together - i.e. 'anchoring' the shape based on snapping it to another one?
* Any way of exporting multiple components in one go, without clicking through for each one?
* Being able to set custom rounded corners with a list is great, but it's not easily discoverable!
* It might be neat to have a pop-up offering boolean options when snapping or overlapping shapes?
* Given the (I think?) JS under the surface, is it possible to import data, either as a CSV or an image from which pixel values can be read?
* Lastly, any thoughts on offering an intermediate 'hobbyist' paid tier? I'd be strongly tempted to support you and access some of the paywalled features, but $19/month is honestly too high for an occasional/fun hobby product.
Cuttle’s snapping is very good (imo). But you have to drag from the snap point to the snap point. So if you want to snap a particular midpoint (say) to a particular corner, you need to drag from that midpoint to that corner. That is, your drag is explicit about the from and to snap points.
To export multiple components, we usually create a component (called “Cut Layout” for example), then drag out each of the other components (the pieces) into that component.
There is a modifier called Flatten which might be useful for you for doing lots of Boolean operations at once. I think this video shows the workflow, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LGHKRfIC6QA
Yes it’s all JS. You could copy and paste your data in and then process it and create geometry. (Sorry we don’t have any data import other than copy and paste at the moment.) Our scripting documentation is pretty good: https://cuttle.xyz/learn/scripting/getting-started-with-scri...
We are experimenting with being able to read pixel values of raster images. Coming soon likely.
Perhaps some kind of middle tier that gives full access to the Editor but does not give full access to the Pro templates makes sense. Many of our customers subscribe for access to those templates rather than the Editor!
You are also free to subscribe when working on a project and need the Pro features, then cancel when you’re dormant. We don’t delete your projects when you downgrade to free, you can still access/edit/download them.
For snapping, I was missing being able to drag the side of an object (not on a corner or midpoint) and have it snap to any parallel line it encounters. You're right that using a corner or midpoint does work very well, but you just have to be more conscious about the action you're making.
For the point about a boolean operation, I was only thinking that if I drag one object on top of another, it would be a timesaver to have icons quickly pop up as a shortcut to the different boolean operations. But probably not a big gain.
RE: the subscription, agree that unlocking projects, downloads, and maybe folders might suit people that are mostly into designing things for themselves. Also, have you considered allowing read-only access to the pro templates within the editor? There are a few that I have no interest in making, but I'd like to learn the more advanced techniques of Cuttle by viewing.
Lastly, one other suggestion; you may already to thinking of this, but given the proliferation of selling 3D/CNC designs online (e.g. Printables, Etsy) have you thought about allowing creators to sell their designs directly from your site?
A Cuttle project is — behind the scenes — a program. Each “component” is a function. “Modifiers” are functions that take input geometry (and parameters) and use JS code to create arbitrary output geometry. All of this code can be live edited.
At the same time you can do arbitrary “drawing” with a bezier pen tool and move/transform shapes. In this case you are essentially using the canvas drag-and-drop to manipulate literals in the program.
But fundamentally a Cuttle project is a program and the Cuttle Editor is an IDE that looks like a vector editor on the surface.
Because of this I’m not sure how much of Cuttle could be grafted onto a program whose architecture is more rooted as an editor of static vector graphics. I do know that Inkscape has some “live effects” which are similar to Cuttle’s “live” modifiers.
Hmmm.. I would say Apparatus is no longer under active development. Researcher Joshua Horowitz was doing some work on it for a bit, but yeah I don’t think it’s changed much in several years. It should be regarded as a research project that scouted out several areas of the “programming experience” world that others can build on.
I was briefly a member of a makerspace with a laser cutter - and it was brilliant! The ratio of effort to results was far better than any other CNC tools I’ve used.
But then COVID and moving house put an end to that. I’d love to recreate something similar at home - but at a budget.
Does anyone have a low cost laser cutter that actually works? It seems like there’s an increasing number of Chinese ones out there, but quality and capabilities are unclear.
There is a saying among those that operahe makerspaces: "people come for the 3d printer,and stay for the laser".
We have Redsail CO2 lasers for nearly 10 years now, in our volunteer ran makerspace in Oslo. It works, but does requires a bunch of setup and maintenance. Of course with hundreds of different users yearly, anything will need that... But it is more and gives poorer results than GCC/Epilog (which another local lab has, albeit with more professional maintenance crew).
GlowForge targets a user group which accept less tinkering.
PS: expect to spend at least the same amount of money/time on ventilation system as the machine itself!!
I got excited when I read "parametric"… thinking it would be akin to what Autocad Inventor had 20+ years ago (setting angles between lines, setting lines to be parallel etc.) since I was recently looking for a simple CAD tool that could do that. Alas.
I’m very curious about the fonts available in Cuttle. Are these all free fonts, or did some need to be licensed? Is it possible to use professional fonts which are on your local machine (without exporting as outlines)? How much adjustment needed to be done to make them appropriate for laser cutting etc? Many fonts which make sense for screen or printing need a lot of detail work to make sense for CAD work.
The free fonts in Cuttle are mostly from Google Fonts and other freely licensed fonts.
With a Pro account you can upload your own font files.
You may be interested in Cuttle’s Connected Text feature. This will automatically connect dots on i’s, etc so you can cut out text in one piece. There’s also an option to “thicken” text so it’s not as delicate.
Perhaps someone on this thread will know the answer to this: is it possible to make V shaped grooves with a laser cutter, or would they end up stepped?
A laser cutter has no inherent depth control. But you can modulate the power, which depending on the exact laser+material combination will give varying depth. In "raster" mode it can be modulated continuous so smooth transitions/slopes are possible. But the exact effect will need to be tested on samples.
On a free account you can create up to 5 projects in the Cuttle Editor (and you can delete them if you want to create more...)
We don't laser cut anything for you. You can download your project as an SVG file (or DXF, etc) which you can then send to a laser cutter hooked up to your computer.
The product is designed for people who have access to a laser cutter, e.g. at home or at a makerspace.
I am one of the creators of Cuttle. It stems from my research building direct manipulation + programming environments like http://recursivedrawing.com/ and http://aprt.us/
From a programmer's perspective, you can think of Cuttle as a direct manipulation vector editor (like Inkscape or Adobe Illustrator) that can be driven with parameters and JS code where you need it.
Unlike my previous research projects, this is a commercial startup mostly catering to laser cutting small businesses, though you can use it for anything where you want a 2D vector editor + some programmatic capabilities.
I'll try to answer questions that come up in this HN thread.
Thank you for sharing your work Hannah! Very cool stuff!
Cuttle is v cool, congratulations! I had previously seen Apparatus and liked it, so I can clearly see the genetic resemblance now ;)
I’m wondering how many of you are on the team, and does it actually support you as a business yet? Even for a quite niche-y app Cuttle deserves to be better known, and higher-priced, imo.
Thanks! There are 5 of us on the team. Yes, the business is profitable.
It would be neat to have STL and STEP output for 3D printers.
Thanks for the suggestion! Yes, we should do this. I've been seeing more and more people use Cuttle for 3D printing (exporting a DXF, then bringing that into another program to extrude and output a STL).
See Solvespace for that.
there's openscad
Hey, I've just spent an hour creating my first design with Cuttle - and I'm very impressed! You're right that it has a very short learning curve, especially coming from a hobbyist CAD and programming background.
A few random thoughts/questions/suggestions (and apologies if I've missed options or existing functions):
* Would it be possible to add edge snapping?
* Could there be a slicker way to switch from the central origin for shapes? (Central is frustrating as it means having to change position every time I tweak the size.) Being able to easily select an arbitrary corner as the origin with a click would be great; maybe even auto-selecting the origin based on snapping two shapes together - i.e. 'anchoring' the shape based on snapping it to another one?
* Any way of exporting multiple components in one go, without clicking through for each one?
* Being able to set custom rounded corners with a list is great, but it's not easily discoverable!
* It might be neat to have a pop-up offering boolean options when snapping or overlapping shapes?
* Given the (I think?) JS under the surface, is it possible to import data, either as a CSV or an image from which pixel values can be read?
* Lastly, any thoughts on offering an intermediate 'hobbyist' paid tier? I'd be strongly tempted to support you and access some of the paywalled features, but $19/month is honestly too high for an occasional/fun hobby product.
Cuttle’s snapping is very good (imo). But you have to drag from the snap point to the snap point. So if you want to snap a particular midpoint (say) to a particular corner, you need to drag from that midpoint to that corner. That is, your drag is explicit about the from and to snap points.
To export multiple components, we usually create a component (called “Cut Layout” for example), then drag out each of the other components (the pieces) into that component.
There is a modifier called Flatten which might be useful for you for doing lots of Boolean operations at once. I think this video shows the workflow, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LGHKRfIC6QA
Yes it’s all JS. You could copy and paste your data in and then process it and create geometry. (Sorry we don’t have any data import other than copy and paste at the moment.) Our scripting documentation is pretty good: https://cuttle.xyz/learn/scripting/getting-started-with-scri...
We are experimenting with being able to read pixel values of raster images. Coming soon likely.
Perhaps some kind of middle tier that gives full access to the Editor but does not give full access to the Pro templates makes sense. Many of our customers subscribe for access to those templates rather than the Editor!
You are also free to subscribe when working on a project and need the Pro features, then cancel when you’re dormant. We don’t delete your projects when you downgrade to free, you can still access/edit/download them.
I appreciate the feedback and the questions!
Thanks for the very comprehensive reply!
For snapping, I was missing being able to drag the side of an object (not on a corner or midpoint) and have it snap to any parallel line it encounters. You're right that using a corner or midpoint does work very well, but you just have to be more conscious about the action you're making.
For the point about a boolean operation, I was only thinking that if I drag one object on top of another, it would be a timesaver to have icons quickly pop up as a shortcut to the different boolean operations. But probably not a big gain.
RE: the subscription, agree that unlocking projects, downloads, and maybe folders might suit people that are mostly into designing things for themselves. Also, have you considered allowing read-only access to the pro templates within the editor? There are a few that I have no interest in making, but I'd like to learn the more advanced techniques of Cuttle by viewing.
Lastly, one other suggestion; you may already to thinking of this, but given the proliferation of selling 3D/CNC designs online (e.g. Printables, Etsy) have you thought about allowing creators to sell their designs directly from your site?
I'm mainly curious whether the concepts in Cuttle could be exposed as plugins in Inkscape, or as a standalone application written in Qt-Python.
A Cuttle project is — behind the scenes — a program. Each “component” is a function. “Modifiers” are functions that take input geometry (and parameters) and use JS code to create arbitrary output geometry. All of this code can be live edited.
At the same time you can do arbitrary “drawing” with a bezier pen tool and move/transform shapes. In this case you are essentially using the canvas drag-and-drop to manipulate literals in the program.
But fundamentally a Cuttle project is a program and the Cuttle Editor is an IDE that looks like a vector editor on the surface.
Because of this I’m not sure how much of Cuttle could be grafted onto a program whose architecture is more rooted as an editor of static vector graphics. I do know that Inkscape has some “live effects” which are similar to Cuttle’s “live” modifiers.
If you are interested in Cuttle’s architecture, I did a one hour walkthrough on this interview, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2el-85vG-IU
Very cool work.
FWIW the aparatus site says
> Apparatus is under active development. Discuss how Apparatus should evolve on the Apparatus Google Group.
Which seems like it's no longer accurate. Has it moved to a different repo?
Hmmm.. I would say Apparatus is no longer under active development. Researcher Joshua Horowitz was doing some work on it for a bit, but yeah I don’t think it’s changed much in several years. It should be regarded as a research project that scouted out several areas of the “programming experience” world that others can build on.
I was briefly a member of a makerspace with a laser cutter - and it was brilliant! The ratio of effort to results was far better than any other CNC tools I’ve used.
But then COVID and moving house put an end to that. I’d love to recreate something similar at home - but at a budget.
Does anyone have a low cost laser cutter that actually works? It seems like there’s an increasing number of Chinese ones out there, but quality and capabilities are unclear.
There is a saying among those that operahe makerspaces: "people come for the 3d printer,and stay for the laser".
We have Redsail CO2 lasers for nearly 10 years now, in our volunteer ran makerspace in Oslo. It works, but does requires a bunch of setup and maintenance. Of course with hundreds of different users yearly, anything will need that... But it is more and gives poorer results than GCC/Epilog (which another local lab has, albeit with more professional maintenance crew). GlowForge targets a user group which accept less tinkering. PS: expect to spend at least the same amount of money/time on ventilation system as the machine itself!!
I got excited when I read "parametric"… thinking it would be akin to what Autocad Inventor had 20+ years ago (setting angles between lines, setting lines to be parallel etc.) since I was recently looking for a simple CAD tool that could do that. Alas.
For hobby/maker/semi-pro that would be Fusion360, Onshape, FreeCAD or Solvespace. And more, probably...
Check out SolveSpace! It might be just what you want, don't be deceived by its retro UI.
Pedant alert. Learning curve is skill/time.
> with an exceptionally shallow learning curve
I'm used to long learning time to incorrectly described as steep, but I haven't seen shallow used as short.
Time to officially deprecate steep and shallow, and use short and long instead.
“The common English usage aligns with a metaphorical interpretation of the learning curve as a hill to climb.” Wikipedia
Both steep and shallow work in this context
Maybe the fault such as it is belongs to the original coiner.
Should've been time/skill not skill/time.
Always so wowed by posts about maker spaces :)
Is it normal in the states? And is it full of cool projects?
I’m very curious about the fonts available in Cuttle. Are these all free fonts, or did some need to be licensed? Is it possible to use professional fonts which are on your local machine (without exporting as outlines)? How much adjustment needed to be done to make them appropriate for laser cutting etc? Many fonts which make sense for screen or printing need a lot of detail work to make sense for CAD work.
The free fonts in Cuttle are mostly from Google Fonts and other freely licensed fonts.
With a Pro account you can upload your own font files.
You may be interested in Cuttle’s Connected Text feature. This will automatically connect dots on i’s, etc so you can cut out text in one piece. There’s also an option to “thicken” text so it’s not as delicate.
You can try a live demo here: https://cuttle.xyz/@cuttle/Connected-Text-29M9IXUSr5yr
That page also describes the algorithm we use to make this work with any font.
Perhaps someone on this thread will know the answer to this: is it possible to make V shaped grooves with a laser cutter, or would they end up stepped?
A laser cutter has no inherent depth control. But you can modulate the power, which depending on the exact laser+material combination will give varying depth. In "raster" mode it can be modulated continuous so smooth transitions/slopes are possible. But the exact effect will need to be tested on samples.
Maybe. Many laser cutters are 3dof so there is no way to tip the cutter to a different angle. Find one with a couple extra axis and then sure.
That would be a lot easier with a CNC mill/router and the correct shaped cutter.
What do they mean by "create 5 free projects"? Will they laser-cut it for you and send it to you by mail?
On a free account you can create up to 5 projects in the Cuttle Editor (and you can delete them if you want to create more...)
We don't laser cut anything for you. You can download your project as an SVG file (or DXF, etc) which you can then send to a laser cutter hooked up to your computer.
The product is designed for people who have access to a laser cutter, e.g. at home or at a makerspace.
I am loving your program making designs for my 3d printer. Thank you for sharing it to the world!
Cuttle looks amazing for 2D geometric patterns. I really must find time to play with it some day and make something. Maybe on leather.
Totally dig this, especially the doorbell chime cover & music box!