Is it possible to add Guides to Easel? For example: I’ve been cutting some custom picture frames for family. The pictures frames are off the shelf. I’d like to put guides on the work surface so I know where I can put text and images on the frame without over or undercutting. Currently I’ve been just laying it out and deleting the frames/guides prior to the cuts.
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I think this is a great idea. Do you think snapping to the guide would be a hard requirement for this? Or would guidelines that are purely visual be enough?
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Dang, that is a cool idea! I’d think that both could be handy, although I think I’d use non-snapping guides more often, myself. Although a “snap to guide” could be really nice. Something where you could place a vertical or horizontal centreline, then have the text justified to it left, right, or centred…
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I second this idea, having and x and y guide lines that the user can drag around would be a huge help for lining up elements.
Even better If there were two x and two y guides then the distance between the two guides could also be displayed on the status bar to aid in setting proper dimensions.
Example
So the user can click on either of the yellow lines and drag them left or right and the distance between the two yellow lines is always displayed as "X Dist = "
The user can also click on either of the red lines and drag them up or down and the distance between the two red lines will be displayed as “Y Dist =”
Just a suggestion.
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That would be good! Multiple X and Y guides would be critical to my direct need.
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Great idea.
20 characters 
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I agree with the two x & y guides ideas
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Has anyone done anything with this?
Currently I am building small glockenspiels and it is critical that the support posts that hold the tone bars (technically these are called idiophones) are placed in specific locations to coincide with the antinodes of the resonant wavelength for each idiophone.
It works out that the nine support posts are all evenly spaced along a sloped line at 1.125" intervals on the x and y axes. If I could draw a guide determined by the coordinates of the first and last posts and then just drop the post shape at the intersections it sure would make layout much easier.
6 months ago I didn’t know anything about CAD/CAM at all, but now, I am rather surprised that guides are not a built in feature of easel.
That would be exactly what I need to get things done a lot easier in Easel. I use Silhouette Studio ( for the Silhouette Cameo) a lot when making designs and their program is easy to use and it has a lot of features. Some of those things would be great in Easel.
Please add guide lines or scale on top and bottom with a line that would appear for the x&y when you click the scale or ruler. Its so hard to get really accurate under an inch with out it
Is this topic going anywhere? I realize that there are other CAD tools that have guideline and snap-to features, but there is an added layer of complexity in learning to use, for example SketchUp or DraftSight and then importing the SVG into EASEL.
Not that it is all that hard, but I teach 11-14 year-olds who are just learning to type. Teaching them all about file types and data management is outside of my baliwick and anyway, they have very limited access to time in the computer lab, and with 120 students, time on one x-carve machine is pretty limited as well.
Here is an example of what I would LIKE to be able to do in EASEL. I am adding a Dust Deputy cyclone separator to our X-Carve. I need to bolt the cyclone and to an MDF lid that will fit a 5 gallon bucket. The bolts are arranged in a hexagon with a 2-1/8" radius circumcircle.
To me, the obvious way to lay out the bolt pattern is to create a hexagon and snap the bolt hole geometry to each vertex, or to individually draw each radius out from the 6 vertices. Seems like I should be able to draw the hexagon and then, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, drop a 5/16 bolt hole at each vertex.
Which is how I did it in SketchUp, but how to do it in Easel? That’s the $64,000 question.
If Easel and the X-Carve are really going to be a way to introduce kids, especially younger kids to the power and accuracy of CAD/CAM, this is the sort of functionality Easel really needs to have.
I echo everyone’s comments this is a great feature and would be helpful in laying out projects.
This is one of those “table salt” type layout features you would expect from a design product like EASEL. I’ve also ran into this issue before when trying to layout items.
Do you know how to import to easel from silhouette studio?
What I do is simple. I manipulate the design in Silhouette. After Im happy with it, I trace the image to clean it up and I turn it red. I screen shoot it and save it in my computer. Then I open it up in easel with the “Image Trace” app and scale it to whatever size I need. The reason why I do that in Silhouette Studio is because Im very familiar with the program. Im sure that there are better programs to do it or a easier ways to do it out there but to me this is very simple. I hope this helps you a little!
Awesome idea! I’m very familiar with silhouette studio so it’s easy for me to design on there!! Gonna give that a try. Thank you!!!
you welcome!