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The Cut Band

A cut band is a strip of marking that runs along your artwork's paths rather than filling inside them. You give it an offset and a width, FocuZ builds a band there, and marking that band repeatedly is what cuts the part out.

Three places use it:

  • 2D Cut — a band around imported 2D art.
  • 3D Cut — a band around a 3D model's floor outline.
  • Cut sublayers — a band added underneath any layer (see below).

The controls below are the same in all three; only holding tabs are exclusive to the 2D Cut and 3D Cut actions.

Where the band sits

Two values place it, both in the Fill section at the top:

  • Offset — how far from the original path the band's inner edge starts. Positive moves it outward. Leave it at 0 to start on the path itself.
  • Distance — the band's width, measured outward from the offset edge.

A Distance of 0 gives you a single line

With Distance at 0 there is no band to fill — the offset line itself becomes the cut. That is the setting you want for a plain single-pass score or a thin material where one line is enough. The band-only controls (outline sides, the Wobble fill) disappear, since there are no edges to talk about.

Together they mean: "start cutting Offset mm out from my art, and make the cut Distance mm wide." Widening the band is how you make room for a real kerf on thicker material.

Filling the band

The Fill dropdown picks the toolpath that covers the band. Every normal fill type is available, plus one that only exists here:

  • Contour — concentric rings following the band's shape. The usual choice for cutting: each ring is a continuous pass along the cut.
  • Wobble — circles marched along the band's centreline, sized to touch both edges. Only offered once Distance is non-zero, since it needs a band to size itself against.
  • Unidirectional / Bidirectional / Cross / Snake / Hilbert Curve / Thatch — the standard fills, applied within the band.
  • None — no band fill. The outline controls are hidden with this setting, so if what you want is a single cut line, set Distance to 0 instead.

Spacing sets the gap between fill passes, exactly as it does for a normal fill.

Edges and order

Outline marks the band's boundary lines in addition to its fill. The dropdown beside it chooses which boundaries mark:

Setting Marks
ID the inner edge only
OD the outer edge only
Both both edges (the default)

Direction sets the order the band marks in — ID>OD works from the inner edge outward, OD>ID from the outer edge inward. This is radial ordering, so it appears only when the fill is Contour: concentric rings are the only fill that is actually arranged inner-to-outer. With any other fill the band's passes have no inside-out sequence to reverse, so the control is hidden and has no effect.

Holding tabs

Cutting a shape free means it drops the moment the last pass completes. Tabs leave small uncut bridges so the part stays attached until you remove it deliberately.

Tabs are available on the 2D Cut and 3D Cut actions. They are off until # Tabs is 1 or more.

  • # Tabs — how many bridges to leave. They are spaced evenly around each closed path.
  • Length — how long each bridge is, measured along the path.
  • Radius — rounds the corners where the cut stops and restarts, so the laser doesn't leave a sharp notch you have to file off.
  • Offset — rotates all the tabs together around the path, in millimetres of travel. Use it to move a tab off a visible edge or a detail you don't want a witness mark on.
  • Start Depth — at what point through the cut the tabs begin. At the default 70%, the first 70% of the layer's passes cut the band all the way around, and the remaining 30% skip the tab positions — so the bridges are only as tall as that last portion of the cut.

Tabs need more than one pass

Start Depth divides the layer's Repeat (the pass count in the layer header) between full passes and tabbed passes. With a single pass there is nothing to divide, so raise Repeat before expecting tabs to hold. (# of Passes in the Parameters section is a different setting — see the parameters table on the Sequencer page.)

Cut sublayers

A Cut sublayer adds a band underneath any layer, so one action can mark artwork and then cut it out. Add one with + Sub on the layer header and set its mode to Cut.

It carries the same Offset, Distance, fill, outline-side and direction controls as above, plus one of its own:

  • Cut Source — what the band is built around: Import (the layer's own art), Perimeter (the outline of what the layer marks), or Border (the layer's border shape).

Holding tabs are not offered on a sublayer — use a 2D Cut or 3D Cut action when you need them.

See also