Draw Lines

Quick Reference: Draw Lines

Places nodes with straight lines or curves between them.

Location

Tools Toolbar

Tools → Draw Lines
Keyboard Shortcuts

Windows: Ctrl+L

Mac: Cmd+L
Keyboard Modifiers

Press S to toggle between placing corner and smooth nodes.

Draw Lines is the fundamental tool for creating vector paths out of straight lines and curves. Use it to create designs from scratch, modify existing graphics, or to manually trace outlines around images (see Trace Image for automatic tracing).

Tip

It's often helpful to refine designs with the Edit Nodes tool after roughing them out with the Draw Lines tool.

Draw Lines allows you to place nodes (points in space, sometimes called anchor points) that are linked by straight lines or curves (Béziers). Curved lines are described by the length and direction of handles (tangents) that appear at one or both of the nodes at either end of a curve.

Using the Draw Lines Tool¶

Activate the Draw Lines tool by clicking the pencil icon in the Tools Toolbar or pressing Ctrl/Cmd+L.

Once the tool is active, the cursor will change to indicate when you are placing corner or smooth nodes.

Lines ¶

Placing corner nodes and creating lines is the default behavior of the Draw Lines tool.

Click anywhere in the Workspace to place a node at the start of a new line, then move your cursor and click again in a different location to place another node with a line in between.

Draw Lines will continue adding nodes with line segments between them as you click, until you either click back at the starting point to close a shape, right-click your mouse to stop, or press the Esc key.

Curves ¶

There are two options for placing smooth nodes and creating curves:

Auto-Smoothed Mode: press S to toggle between creating corner and smooth nodes (the cursor will change to indicate which mode you're in). After toggling, click to place a smooth node. The next line you create after placing a smooth node will be curved, and its direction and intensity will be determined by the placement of the next node.
Controlled Mode: click, hold, and drag while placing a node to create a smooth node with control handles — move your cursor while holding the click to control the direction and intensity of the curve handle. Release to place the handle, then click to place a node.

Constrain Placement Angle¶

Hold Shift while moving your cursor to constrain node and handle placement to a horizontal, vertical, or 45 degree angle from the last node placed.

Continue an Existing Drawing¶

Click on the start or end point of an open path to continue an existing drawing — new lines started from these points are automatically connected to the pre-existing path.

If you create a line or curve that connects the start or end points of two existing open shapes, LightBurn will Auto-Join them, and the new, combined path will be indicated by the animated dash selection pattern.

Hold Ctrl/Cmd while placing nodes to disable the Auto-Join behavior.

Snapping¶

In either placement mode, you can add nodes by Snapping to points on existing geometry: lines, corners, midpoints of lines, intersections of lines, and other nodes.

Your cursor will change to indicate the type of Snapping point you're hovering over, and when you move your cursor close enough to a valid point, it will Snap into position — click to place a node perfectly aligned to that point.

Hold Option/Alt while moving your cursor to Snap to points from farther away.

Measuring¶

To measure while drawing a line, check the Status Bar.

It shows:

dx: the placement of the cursor along the X (horizontal) axis
dy: the placement of the cursor along the Y (vertical) axis
len: the length of the line segment that is currently being placed
The angle between successive line segments as you create them

How to Practice¶

For more help using LightBurn, please visit our forum to talk with LightBurn staff and users, or email support.