Start with a blank canvas

A blank canvas is the most flexible start: you draw everything yourself and can still drop in parametric components later.

Open one

1. Go to new design.
2. Under How will you make it? pick the process: laser cutting, laser engraving, Cricut / Silhouette, vinyl cutting or home printing. This sets sensible layers, a suitable default material and the minimum detail size.
3. Choose a canvas size preset or type a width and height in millimetres. For home printing the canvas follows the paper size.
4. Optionally name the design, then choose Open blank canvas.

What the canvas size means

The canvas is your work area in real millimetres. With Layout → Keep my placement, the canvas becomes the sheet in your files exactly as you arranged it. With Auto-nest on bed, parts are packed onto your machine's bed size instead, which is useful for many small parts.

You can change the canvas size, process and material at any time: with nothing selected, the right-hand panel shows the Canvas, Fabrication and Material settings. Press Esc to clear the selection.