Primary Shapes: Rectangles, Ellipses, and Polygons

This page covers the creation and editing of various Primary Shapes, including:

Rectangles and squares
Ellipses (ovals) and circles
Polygons with any numbers of sides, such as triangles, pentagons, hexagons, octagons, etc.

The products of these tools are often used to create the foundation of a design, either on their own, or combined with other objects to build up complexity.

These shapes are a special kind of vector object called Built-in Shapes that retain editable properties such as number of Sides for Polygons, or Corner Radius for Rectangles.

Shape Creation¶

Click one of the Primary Shape tools in the Tools Toolbar, Tools Menu, or use the following keyboard shortcuts:

Rectangle/Square: Ctrl / Cmd+R
Ellipse/Circle: Ctrl / Cmd+E
Polygon has no keyboard shortcut — select it from the toolbar.

Click, hold, and drag in your Workspace to create the selected Primary Shape.

By default, the shape will begin at the first point you click, and extend from that point in both directions as you drag.
Holding Ctrl / Cmd will instead draw the shape from the center outward, which can be useful when aligning shapes to other parts of a design.
Holding Shift while dragging will make the shape into its regular form — the Rectangle tool will make a square, the Ellipse a circle, and the Polygon tool will make an equal-sided polygon.
Hold both keys at once to combine their effects.

Editing Primary Shapes¶

It's possible to adjust various aspects of an existing Primary Shape in the Shape Properties Window, or by using special control handles on the shape in your Workspace. The aspects vary between shape types but include dimensions, Corner Radius, and number of Sides.

Dimensions¶

You can change Width and Height in the Shape Properties Window and the Numeric Edits Toolbar.

Corner Radius — Rectangle Only¶

Corner Radius rounds out the corners by a given amount, which remains consistent even if the dimensions of the rectangle are later changed.

With a Rectangle selected, hold Ctrl / Cmd, and a blue control handle will appear. Drag the blue handle away from the corner to increase the radius of all four corners, and drag back toward the corner to decrease it. Dragging vertically creates a reversed radius, with a bite taken out of the corner.

You can also edit Corner Radius numerically in the Shape Properties Window.

Sides — Polygon Only¶

Adjust the number of Sides of a Polygon in the Shape Properties Window to form different shapes — 3 will create a triangle, 6 will create a hexagon, 8 will create an octagon, and so on.

It's also possible to change the number of sides by holding Ctrl / Cmd and dragging the purple control handle that appears near the polygon.

Node-Editing a Primary Shape¶

Primary Shapes must be Converted to Paths to make editing their nodes possible. This process permanently removes the ability to edit a shape's dimensions, Corner Radius, or number of Sides in the Shape Properties Window.

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