2D Design: Magic Wand

Brad Castle

15 April 2025 16:32

Magic Wand Tool

The Magic Wand Tool is a lesser-known but powerful feature in Carveco Maker. It combines functionality from both the Bitmap-to-Vector and Relief Boundary tools to create quick boundaries based on colour or height. You’ll find this tool under the Bitmap menu.

Overview

The Magic Wand tool can be used to trace image colour areas or relief features, generating vectors directly from them. This is especially useful for quickly outlining specific regions of interest in your design.

Using the Magic Wand

To access the tool:

Go to Bitmap > Magic Wand

You’ll be presented with two options:

Use Image Colour
Use Relief Height

Tracing Image Colours

When using Image Colour mode:

Zoom into the area you want to trace.
Select a primary colour (e.g. purple).
Click on the colour area in the design to generate a boundary.

By default, this creates a raw pixel-based vector which may appear jagged. You can improve this by enabling the Create Smooth Boundaries option for cleaner curves and smoother lines.

Creating Smooth Boundaries

Before clicking to trace, enable Create Smooth Boundaries in the right-hand panel. This will round edges and produce more usable vectors for machining or design purposes.

Adjusting Tolerance

The Tolerance setting controls how strictly the vector traces the edges of pixels:

0% – Follows the base pixel colour area.
Higher values – Extend or contract the vector to fit more loosely or tightly.

In practice, most users leave tolerance at 0% for more accurate traces.

Using with Reliefs

The Magic Wand can also trace relief height:

Select Use Relief Height from the options panel.
Click on the area of the relief you wish to outline.
A boundary will be created around the base of that height.

Note: This does not allow height-range selection. For more advanced control, use Create Boundary from Relief instead.

Hints, Tips & Tricks

Enable Smooth Boundaries for cleaner, curved vector output—ideal for cutting paths.
Use Image Colour when working with flat images, and Relief Height when tracing 3D models.
Leave Tolerance at 0% unless you specifically want to soften jagged edges.
Delete the outer border vector when using relief tracing if you only need the interior outline.
Combine this with vector machining strategies for precise, selective cuts around complex shapes.

Summary

The Magic Wand Tool is an efficient way to generate boundaries directly from bitmaps or reliefs. Whether you're prepping designs for machining or isolating specific areas for tracing, this tool adds speed and flexibility to your workflow.