Everything Lùmen Can Do

Real-Time Preview & Positioning

Before you fire the laser, Lùmen shows you exactly what will happen. The interactive 2D canvas displays your entire job with zoom and pan, the machine's real work area in millimeters, and the current laser position.

• Color-coded layers — blue for the engrave layer, red for the cut layer. Both are visible at once and you can tell what burns from what cuts at a glance.
• Drag & drop positioning — move and resize layers and individual items directly on the canvas, or type precise X, Y, width, height, and rotation angle in millimeters and degrees.
• Aspect ratio lock — hold Shift on a corner handle to keep the original aspect ratio while resizing.
• Zoom and pan — scroll to zoom, drag to pan. Works just like any Mac design tool.

Framing

The Frame command traces the exact boundary of your job before engraving — so you can verify placement without burning anything. With the laser pointer active, the machine moves at low power (S10) to draw a visible outline on your material. With the pointer off, it traces the boundary with rapid moves.

Framing respects work area limits in Machine Home mode, preventing end-stop alarms.

Simple & Advanced Modes

Lùmen meets you where you are. A segmented control at the top of the sidebar switches the right pane between two layouts that drive the exact same engine — pick the depth you want. Your choice is remembered between sessions.

Simple — a guided five-step flow

New to laser engraving, or just want to get a job out fast? Simple mode lays the workflow out as five numbered steps — Machine & material, Design & cut, Position, Frame, and Engrave. Each step shows whether it's done, current, or still to do, and the current one expands automatically — so you always know what to do next, without hunting through panels.

Advanced — the full cockpit

Flip to Advanced for the complete set of collapsible sections: machine status, real-time overrides, job controls, material presets, layers, machine settings, and jog. Everything is one click away, nothing is hidden.

Both modes share the same canvas, toolbar, connection bar, and status strip — switching is instant and your work never changes. Simple is the default, so first-timers get the guided path out of the box.

Claude & AI Integration (MCP)

Lùmen is the first Mac laser controller you can drive with an AI assistant. It runs a local Model Context Protocol (MCP) server, so Claude — or any MCP-capable client — can read your project and build a design in plain language, right on the canvas.

Design by describing it

Ask in natural language — “add a 60 mm circle with the text 2026 centered, then put a rectangular frame around everything” — and the shapes, text, and layout appear on the canvas as real, editable items. The assistant can add rectangles, ellipses, lines, polygons, and multi-line text, import an image to engrave or an SVG to cut, set a material preset, then duplicate, align, distribute, array into a grid, center, and fit the design to the work area.

It can see what it made

A screenshot tool renders the work area — grid, origin, layers in engrave-blue and cut-red, and the laser head when connected — and hands it back to the assistant as an image. So the AI can look at the layout, check it against what you asked for, and adjust. A validate-design tool flags problems before you run the job: cut out of bounds, custom origin not set, or artwork outside the work area.

It designs, it never drives — by design

The AI's scope is strictly read and design. There is no tool that moves the head, homes the machine, sets the origin, frames, starts a job, or fires the laser. An assistant can compose artwork and inspect state; everything physical stays in your hands, behind the same buttons and the same 5-second countdown as always.

Private, and off by default

The server is off until you turn it on, listens only on your own Mac (127.0.0.1), and is a licensed feature. Setup is one click: open Settings → MCP, enable AI control, and install the bundled Claude Desktop extension — or point any MCP client at the bridge command shown there. Works with Claude Desktop and Claude Code today.

Built-in Shape & Text Editor

Lùmen isn't just a sender — it's also an editor. Draw rectangles, ellipses, lines, polylines, and multi-line text directly on the canvas, no Inkscape or Illustrator needed for simple jobs.

Five drawing tools

A floating toolbar in the corner of the canvas offers five tools:

• Select — click an item, drag to move, use the handles to resize or rotate.
• Rectangle / Ellipse — click and drag to draw. Hold Shift to constrain to a perfect square or circle.
• Line / Polyline — each click drops a vertex; click the first vertex (with the green snap indicator) to close as a polygon, double-click or Enter to finish as an open polyline, Esc cancels.
• Text — click to place a placeholder; the layer panel takes over for editing content, font, width & style variants, font size (in mm), alignment (left / center / right), and multi-line text.

After committing a shape, the tool auto-switches back to Select — you can immediately move it or tweak its parameters without an extra click.

Smart resize and rotation handles

Selected shapes show 9 handles: 4 corners, 4 edge midpoints, and a green rotation handle above the top edge. Resize is anchor-locked: the opposite corner stays visually fixed even when the shape is rotated. The math projects the cursor through the shape's unrotated frame and recomputes the bounds so the visual anchor never drifts — exactly like in pro design tools.

Hold Shift on a corner handle to lock the original aspect ratio during resize.

Intensity instead of colors (Engrave only)

On the Engrave layer every item has two intensity sliders: Fill and Stroke, from 0 to 100%. Intensity is also a multiplier on the layer's laser power: a rectangle with 50% fill burns at half the configured power for the Engrave layer.

Each layer has its own identifying color on the canvas: blue for Engrave (matching the rasterized toolpath), red for Cut (matching the imported SVG). The blue alpha tracks intensity: solid blue = full burn, transparent blue = reduced power. You can tell what does what at a glance.

On the Cut layer, shapes are always stroke-only (filling an area to cut it makes no sense) and per-item intensity is hidden: the layer's power / feed / passes govern every cut. Shapes added to Cut are automatically coerced to stroke-only, and you can still select them by clicking inside the outline — not just on the edge.

Precise position, size, rotation

The X, Y, W, H, and ∠ fields in the layer panel accept exact numeric values in millimeters and degrees. Shapes can be rotated by an exact value (e.g. 45°), moved to precise coordinates, resized to exact millimeters — no dragging required. Every change reflects instantly on the canvas.

The engrave image can now be rotated too: a green rotation handle appears when the engrave layer is selected. The rotation is baked into the G-code the laser will execute — not just a visual effect.

Two-level layer panel

Photoshop / Figma style: each layer (Engrave / Cut) expands to show every item it contains. Click an item to select it, edit its parameters inline. The + button on each layer offers contextual actions: add an image / G-code / SVG (replaces if one is already there), or activate a drawing tool to place new shapes.

Multi-line text works exactly as you'd expect: there's a multi-line editor in the panel, press Enter for a new line, the text is laid out with the font's natural leading via CoreText.

Pick any font, with width and style variants

Text items expose three pickers driven by every font installed on your Mac: Font (family), Width (Condensed / Compressed / Normal / Expanded …, shown only when the family has more than one), and Style (Regular / Bold / Italic / Bold Italic / …). Switch family and Lùmen preserves the current width + style if the new family supports them — e.g. going from Helvetica Condensed Bold Italic to Courier keeps Condensed Bold Italic when available, with graceful fallback otherwise.

Font size is a TextField + stepper combo: type an exact value in millimeters, or focus the stepper and use ↑ / ↓ to nudge by 1 mm.

Editable project files

Lùmen's v2 .gcode format includes a JSON block with every shape, geometry, style, and editable text. Reopen a project and find everything still editable — no flattening to curves or pixels. The file stays compatible with other senders that read only the plain G-code (it's saved as well, as a compatibility cache).

Three Image Processing Modes

Lùmen converts your images to laser-ready G-code with three distinct processing modes, each suited to different materials and styles.

Dithering

Converts your image to black-and-white dots using error-diffusion algorithms. This is the gold standard for engraving photographs on wood, producing fine detail with excellent contrast. Choose from 7 algorithms:

Grayscale Mapping

Maps continuous tones directly to laser power levels, producing smooth gradients. Best on materials that respond linearly to power changes, like anodized aluminum or slate.

Threshold

Binary conversion: every pixel becomes either fully burned or untouched. Adjustable threshold (0–255) lets you control the cutoff point. Ideal for high-contrast logos, text, and line art.

Brightness & Contrast

Both adjustable from −100 to +100 with instant preview. The interface shows your original image side by side with the processed result, so you can evaluate the output before generating G-code.

Supported Formats

PNG, JPEG, BMP, and TIFF.

SVG Vector Cutting

Load any SVG file for precise vector cutting. Lùmen's built-in SVG parser handles all standard elements and converts them to optimized G-code.

• Full element support — paths with Bézier curves, rectangles, circles, ellipses, lines, polylines, and polygons.
• Nested transformations — rotation, scale, and translation are resolved correctly, even when deeply nested.
• Independent parameters — speed, power, and number of passes (1–20) are set separately from the engrave layer.
• M3 constant power mode — ensures clean, uniform cuts at consistent depth, regardless of speed changes during acceleration and deceleration.

Curves are automatically converted to linear segments for G-code. The cut layer appears in red on the canvas, clearly separated from the blue engrave layer.

Multi-item Dual Layer System

Combine engraving and cutting in a single job. Lùmen's two-layer system lets you engrave a design and cut its outline without repositioning your material — and each layer can hold any number of items: shapes, text, the imported image, the SVG.

• Engrave layer — raster images, drawn shapes, and text processed with M4 dynamic power mode for optimal gradient reproduction.
• Cut layer — SVG vector paths and stroke-only shapes processed with M3 constant power mode for clean, consistent cuts.
• Independent positioning and sizing — each layer has its own X, Y, width, height, and rotation. Move and resize them separately on the canvas or via numeric fields.
• Two-level layer tree — expand a layer to see every item inside, like in Photoshop or Figma. The + menu adds images, G-code, SVG, or activates a drawing tool to place new shapes.
• Sequential execution — engrave runs first, then cut. This order prevents cut pieces from shifting during engraving.
• Use one or both — start a job with just an image, just an SVG, just shapes, or any combination.

Precise Parameter Control

No guesswork. Every parameter is adjustable via dedicated sliders, and the preview updates in real time as you make changes.

Real-Time Overrides

During a running job, you can adjust feed rate and laser power without pausing. Controls allow ±1% and ±10% adjustments, or a reset to 100%. Changes apply instantly through GRBL's real-time command protocol.

18 Material Presets

Ready-to-use presets for the most common laser engraving and cutting materials. Select a preset and all parameters — speed, power max, power min, resolution, and passes — are set automatically.

Engraving Presets

Cutting Presets

Custom Presets

Found the perfect settings for a material? Save them as a custom preset. Create, edit, rename, and delete your own presets — they persist across sessions and are always one click away in the dropdown menu.

Power/Speed Test Grid

The fastest way to find optimal settings for a new material. Lùmen generates a calibration grid where each cell is engraved at a different combination of speed and power, so you can visually identify the best parameters.

• Configurable steps — 2 to 10 steps for both speed and power axes.
• Adjustable cell size and spacing — fit the grid to your material sample.
• Resolution control — match the resolution you plan to use for the final job.
• Preview with axis labels — see the grid layout and all speed/power values before generating G-code.

Run the test, pick the cell that looks best, and apply those parameters to your job.

Flexible Work Origin

Two modes for positioning your work, depending on your setup and workflow.

Machine Home Mode

Uses the machine's limit switches to establish a repeatable zero position. Work area limits are enforced automatically — Lùmen prevents movements and G-code coordinates from exceeding the physical boundaries, avoiding hard-limit alarms.

Custom Origin Mode

Jog the laser to any position and press Set Zero Here. Custom origin is fully WYSIWYG: the canvas crosshair is your zero point, and whatever you place relative to it engraves and cuts exactly there — no anchor or alignment guesswork. Custom origin is even saved in the project and restored automatically when you reopen it.

Jog Controls

8-direction jog pad with configurable step size in millimeters. The laser pointer toggles a low-power visible dot (S10) so you can see exactly where the focus point is without burning your material.

Connection, Streaming & Recovery

Lùmen implements the GRBL character-counting streaming protocol with precise 127-byte buffer tracking. Every command is tracked from send to acknowledgment, preventing buffer overflows and keeping raster motion smooth.

USB or WiFi

Connect over USB or, new in 2.0, over WiFi. Network-capable controllers — ESP32 / ESP3D-class boards such as the Algolaser Pixie — expose the same GRBL command stream over a raw TCP socket: pick WiFi, enter the machine's IP and port, and connect. Because only the transport changes, every feature works identically on either link.

Reliable mode

Some long jobs over USB stall partway through when an acknowledgement is lost on the cable — common on no-flow-control USB-CDC links. Turn on Reliable and Lùmen sends one line at a time and safely recovers from a dropped ack, so the job runs to the end. Normal mode is a touch faster and best for photo engraving; you can switch any time, even mid-job.

Stall warning

If the machine goes silent mid-job with commands still pending, Lùmen surfaces a clear “Job stalled” warning, so you're never left guessing in front of a hung job. It's informational — it never blindly drains the buffer (which would overflow the controller); you decide whether to stop and resume.

Resume from Position

Stopped mid-job? Resume from the exact G-code line where you left off with the Resume button. No need to start the entire job over.

Color-Coded Serial Console

The built-in console shows all serial communication in real time:

• Blue — commands sent to the machine
• Black — responses from the machine
• Grey — status reports
• Red — errors and alarms

Type G-code commands manually, navigate command history with arrow keys, and export the full log as a text file for debugging or support.

Editable Project Files

Save your entire job — both layers, every shape and text item, all settings, positions, sizes, and rotations — into a single .gcode file in Lùmen's v2 native format.

• Every item stays editable — rectangles, ellipses, lines, polygons, and text are stored as JSON geometry, not flattened to curves or pixels. Reopen and tweak any item without losing precision.
• Complete state preservation — engrave G-code, cut SVG data, positions, dimensions, rotations, intensity, and every parameter are saved and restored exactly.
• SVG preserved as base64 — the original SVG data is embedded in the project file, so you can resize and re-edit the cut layer after reopening.
• Compatible with other senders — project files include standard G-code that any generic G-code sender can execute, even without Lùmen-specific features. Old projects load cleanly in the new version.

14 Machine Presets

Built-in presets for the most popular GRBL laser engravers. Each preset configures the work area dimensions and maximum speed/power values for your specific machine.

Don't see your machine? Create a custom preset with your work area size and max values. Custom presets are saved permanently and editable at any time.

Safety

Lasers are powerful tools. Lùmen includes multiple safety layers to prevent accidents and protect your machine.

• 5-second countdown before every job starts, with cancel option. Gives you time to put on safety glasses and verify placement.
• Automatic laser-off — the laser pointer is turned off before job start, and the laser is shut down (M5, S0) at job completion or stop.
• Work area limits — in Machine Home mode, G-code coordinates are clamped to the physical work area, preventing hard-limit alarms.
• Overscan clamping — overscan is dynamically reduced when the image is near work area edges, preventing negative coordinates that would trigger ALARM:1 errors.
• Jog limits — jog controls are disabled while the machine is moving and movements are clamped to the work area boundaries.
• Alarm detection — GRBL alarm codes are detected and displayed with human-readable descriptions (hard limit triggered, homing failure, etc.).