Laser Cut SVG
How to prepare an SVG for laser cutting. Three operations, one file.
Cut, score and engrave are the same geometry with different signals attached — stroke or fill, colour, layer. Get the signals right and the import is uneventful. Get them wrong and the machine engraves what you meant to cut.
- cut
- score
- engrave
Signalling the operation
Stroke means follow. Fill means raster.
That single distinction explains nearly every surprise a laser file produces. The colour convention is secondary — most software lets you remap it, but not all of it defaults sensibly.
Cut
Hairline stroke, no fill
Conventionally pure red — #FF0000
The beam goes all the way through. Every cut path must be closed, or the piece stays attached to the sheet.
Score
Hairline stroke, no fill, separate layer
Conventionally pure blue — #0000FF
A shallow line that marks without severing. Used for fold lines, registration marks and drawn detail.
Engrave
Solid fill, no stroke
Conventionally black — #000000
The head rasters back and forth across the filled area. Fills are the only way to signal an engrave region.
The preflight
Seven checks before the file leaves the editor.
Nearly every failed job is one of these rather than anything exotic. Run them in order — the same list whether the artwork was generated here, drawn in Inkscape or downloaded from a library.
- 01
Set the document in real units
Millimetres, at the true finished size. Laser software reads the document dimensions literally, and a file authored in abstract units arrives at some arbitrary scale.
- 02
Use hairline strokes for cuts
0.001 in or 0.025 mm. Anything thicker may be interpreted as a shape to engrave rather than a line to follow.
- 03
Separate operations into layers
One layer per operation, named. This is what lets you assign different power and speed settings to each in the software.
- 04
Remove duplicate overlapping paths
Two identical paths stacked on top of each other means the laser cuts the same line twice — burning the edge and doubling the run time.
- 05
Account for kerf
The beam removes material about 0.1 to 0.3 mm wide. Parts that have to fit together need that allowance designed in, or they will be loose.
- 06
Outline all text
Convert type to paths. Laser software rarely has your fonts, and a substituted typeface is discovered after the material is scrap.
- 07
Keep the colours RGB
Operation mapping is read from colour values, and a CMYK round trip shifts pure red off #FF0000 into something the software no longer recognises as your cut layer.
Kerf
The material the beam takes away.
A cut is not infinitely thin. The beam vaporises a strip of material along the path, so a tab drawn at exactly 3 mm comes out narrower than 3 mm. For decorative pieces this is irrelevant; for anything that interlocks it is the difference between a press fit and a rattle.
Cut a test comb from your actual material before committing a full sheet. The figures opposite are starting points, not measurements of your machine.
| Material | Typical kerf |
|---|---|
| 3 mm plywood | 0.15 – 0.25 mm |
| 3 mm acrylic | 0.10 – 0.20 mm |
| 6 mm plywood | 0.20 – 0.35 mm |
| Cardboard | 0.20 – 0.40 mm |
If you came for files
We do not have a catalogue of cut files.
Most of what ranks for laser cut SVG is a download library, and if a ready-made box or coaster is what you want, one of these will get you there faster than we will.
3axis.co
Around 2,500 free SVG and DXF files, heavily weighted to boxes, brackets and decorative panels.
Atomm
60,000+ free cut and engrave files in SVG, DXF and XCS, sorted by material.
Design Bundles
A mix of free and paid, with the largest selection of finished project files — puzzles, coasters, earrings.
Maker Union
Clean themed SVGs with no account needed to download, which is rarer than it should be.
A downloaded file still needs the preflight above — library files arrive with duplicate paths, stroke widths set for a different machine and text left live more often than you would hope. The checks are the same whoever drew it.
Questions
Laser files, answered.
- How do I create an SVG file for laser cutting?
- Set the document to the real finished size in millimetres, draw the cut geometry as closed paths with a hairline stroke and no fill, put score and engrave work on their own named layers, outline any text, then export. The seven checks below are the whole preflight — most failed jobs come from one of them rather than from anything exotic.
- Is SVG used for laser cutting?
- Yes, it is one of the two standard formats alongside DXF. LightBurn, the Glowforge app and xTool Creative Space all import SVG directly. DXF is more common in engineering workflows and carries no styling, which is why SVG tends to win for anything with an engrave layer.
- Do you have free laser cut files to download?
- No. This is a generator and an editor, not a file library — nothing here is pre-drawn. 3axis.co, Atomm, Design Bundles and Maker Union publish thousands of ready-made files between them and are the right first stop if that is what you want. Generation earns its place when you need a specific thing, or a design nobody else is selling.
- Can I use an AI-generated SVG for laser cutting?
- As a starting point, yes, but not straight out of the generator. Generated artwork arrives as filled shapes rather than hairline cut paths, and nothing in it knows which lines you meant to cut and which to score. The preflight below is what turns it into a machine file, and it is the same preflight a design from any other source needs.
- Why do my cut lines engrave instead of cutting?
- Because the software read them as filled shapes. A cut path needs a hairline stroke and no fill; a shape with a fill is an engrave region by definition. Setting fill to none across the cut layer fixes it.
- What is kerf and do I need to care?
- Kerf is the width of material the beam vaporises — roughly 0.1 to 0.3 mm depending on material and thickness. It only matters for parts that interlock: a tab cut to its nominal width ends up that much narrower than the slot expects.
- Which colours should I use for each operation?
- Most software lets you map any colour to any operation, but pure red for cut, blue for score and black for engrave is the widest convention. Confirm against your machine's own documentation.
- Does SVG work with Glowforge and LightBurn?
- Both import SVG. Requirements are the same either way: real units, closed paths, hairline strokes for cuts, fills for engraves, and operations on separate layers.
- Can I engrave a photograph?
- That is a raster engrave and needs a bitmap, not a vector. Vector engraving suits flat shapes, line work and lettering — which is what a generated SVG is good at anyway.
- How do I size the design correctly?
- Set the viewBox and document size to the real millimetre dimensions before exporting. Because the artwork is vector, changing that later rescales everything with no loss.