2D Design: Snapping

Carveco Maker: Snapping Explained

In this tutorial, we’ll take a closer look at snapping in Carveco — a powerful feature that allows your drawing tools to intelligently “lock” onto specific geometry like endpoints, tangents, and grid locations. This helps you create precise, clean vector work.

Snap to Object

When Snap to Object is enabled, your cursor will automatically align to nearby geometry such as endpoints, midpoints, and tangents. This is ideal when you're connecting lines or building clean closed shapes.

• Start drawing with a tool like Polyline.
• Hover over existing geometry — the cursor will change at snap points.
• Click to lock onto those precise points automatically.

This removes the need to zoom in and manually align your cursor to edges or corners.

Tangency Snapping

When hovering over a circle or arc, the cursor can also snap to a tangent. This helps when drawing shapes that are meant to align smoothly with curves.

• Hover near the side of a circle until the cursor changes to a tangent icon.
• Click to snap — the vector will be tangent to the curve.

Snap Hints

Snap Hints show small visual markers (circles) near snap locations without actually locking the cursor to them.

• Enable via View > Snapping > Snap Hints.
• Hover near objects to see indicators of available snap points.
• Click near a hint to then activate a real snap point.

While helpful when you're first learning, Snap Hints can become cluttered in complex designs and are best disabled in advanced workflows.

Snap to Grid

The Snap to Grid function allows you to align your drawings to a fixed grid — useful for technical and engineering-style layouts.

• Enable the grid via View > Show Grid.
• Then turn on snapping via View > Snapping > Snap to Grid.
• Grid dots represent the intervals you can snap to when drawing.

Adjusting Grid Spacing

You can set the grid spacing to suit your design:

• Go to View > Snapping > Snap Grid Settings.
• Adjust the spacing (e.g. 1", 0.5") to update the layout grid.

To temporarily bypass snapping, hold Shift while drawing to freehand between grid points.

Turning Snapping Off

To disable snapping and return to freehand drawing:

• Uncheck snapping options under View > Snapping.
• Also disable the grid with View > Show Grid.