Crafty Glass Designer

Quick start: your first design

1. New (top bar). Pick Empty – shapes only for a suncatcher or Full panel for a framed window, choose a size and press Create. Or press Patterns to start from a ready-made design.
2. Draw lead lines with the tools on the left: Freehand F, Pen P, Line L or the shapes. Line ends snap onto other lines, so areas close up into pieces.
3. Watch the pieces appear. Every closed area becomes a numbered piece. Orange and red markers are design checks: hover or tap one for a one-click fix.
4. Paint the glass with the Fill tool B. Pick a glass on the Glass tab first.
5. Add jump rings O if it will hang, and check the Materials tab for what to buy.
6. Export: print the full-size pattern and make the cutter files. Save Ctrl+S keeps a .cgd file to open again later.

The screen

Top bar

Toolbar, option strip and status bar

• Toolbar (left): the drawing tools. Hover a button to see its name and keyboard key. Each tool is explained under Drawing tools.
• Option strip (above the drawing): settings for the tool you have picked, a short hint, and a Manual link to that tool's part of this manual. On the right: Snap, Grid, Numbers, Checks, Mirror and Fit (fit the panel in the window, key 0).
• Status bar (bottom): the pointer position, the number of pieces and lines, the check count and the zoom.

Side panel tabs

• Project: the panel's name, shape and size; how the lines are built (copper foil, lead, zinc or brass came, or mosaic), glass thickness, foil and gap sizes; the border; and, when lines are selected, tools for those lines.
• Glass: your glass library and the colour wheel.
• Checks: every design warning with its fix buttons.
• Materials: glass to buy per colour, foil or came, solder and other supplies.

Zooming and moving around

• Mouse: the wheel zooms; hold Space and drag, or use the Pan tool H, to move.
• Tablet: pinch to zoom, drag with two fingers to move.
• Fit or 0 brings the whole panel back into view. At 100% the design is close to real size on most screens.

Starting a design

New design: empty or full panel

• Empty – shapes only (free-form): there is no background glass. Only closed shapes, or lines that meet to close an area, become pieces, so a suncatcher can be just a flower or a bird. The work area shows as a checkerboard because it isn't glass. The outside line of your drawing is the edge of the piece.
• Full panel: the whole panel starts as one piece of glass that you divide with lines. Shapes are rectangle, oval or circle and arch top. The size is the finished outside size, including the border came. One click on the Project tab adds a glass border band (mitred, butted or corner blocks).

You can change the shape and size later on the Project tab.

The pattern library

• Patterns (top bar) opens ready-made designs in groups such as Geometric, Flowers & nature, Animals, Suncatchers, Holidays & faith and Windows & doors. Search by name or word (“flower”, “Christmas”, “border”).
• Pick a size: the built-in patterns are redrawn at that size, so circles stay round and borders keep their width. The window shows the piece count and the check result.
• Start a new design opens the pattern on its own. Add to this design follows the pointer: click to put it down, then move, resize or rotate it. One undo takes it out again.
• Save this design as a pattern… keeps your design (or just the selected lines, as a motif) in your own library. Your patterns live in this browser on this device: use Export my patterns to back them up or move them, and Import… to load them back.

Tracing a picture

Import image takes a PNG, JPEG, GIF, BMP, WebP or SVG. You can then:

• Trace into pattern with one of two modes:
  • Colour regions: for photos and colourful art. Areas of colour become pieces, already painted.
  • Line art / drawn pattern: for pencil drawings, printed patterns and logos. Dark lines become lead lines and the areas come in unpainted. Even out shading stops pencil shading and shadows on a photo of a pattern from swallowing the lines.
• Use the sliders (colours, smallest piece, smoothing, simplifying, detail) and watch the preview next to the original.
• Leave out the paper around the drawing makes only the drawing into glass, as a free-form piece.
• Or choose Use as tracing image only to keep the picture under the drawing and draw the lines yourself. The Glass slider in the option strip makes the painted glass see-through so the picture still shows; Image on top (Project tab) lays it over the glass.

Drawing tools

Every line you draw is a lead line (or foil seam). Pieces are worked out from the lines automatically. Shapes are lines too: paint the glass in afterwards with the Fill tool.

Select and edit V

• Click a line to select it; drag a box or Shift-click to select several. Ctrl+A selects everything.
• Drag to move. Corner squares resize, the circle rotates. Arrow keys nudge (Shift for bigger steps).
• Drag a point to move it. Drag the orange ◆ in the middle of a straight stretch to bend it into a curve. Double-click a line to add a point. C switches a point between corner and smooth.
• Del deletes, Ctrl+D duplicates.
• The Project tab shows tools for the selected lines: Built with (foil or came, per line), Smooth curves, Straighten, Mirror copy, Flip, Duplicate and Delete.

Pen P

Click to place corners; click and drag to make a curve. Click the first point to close the shape. Double-click, Enter or right-click to finish; Esc cancels.

Freehand F

• Draw as with a pencil. The ends snap onto nearby lines so pieces close.
• Smoothing (Off, Light, Medium, Strong) steadies the line while you draw and evens out small bumps when you lift. Corners and line ends stay where you put them.
• Hold to snap: at the end of a stroke, keep the pen down and still for 1.5 seconds. A roughly straight stroke becomes a straight line, a curve becomes a smooth arc, and a loop back to the start becomes a circle. Keep holding and move to place the end, then lift.

Straight line L and wave W

Drag from one end to the other. Shift keeps to 15° steps. The wave line has a Waves setting for how many curves it makes.

Text T

• Click where the words go, then type them. Any font on the computer can be used.
• Letters are glass: each letter is outlined in lead. Bridge the holes adds a short line into O, A, B, P, R and similar letters so each cuts in one piece.
• Letters are lead: a single lead line writes the word.
• Set the letter height, spacing, bold or italic and alignment. The words arrive selected, ready to move or resize.

Eraser X

• Section between crossings: hover a line to see in red the stretch between the nearest crossings, then click to remove just that stretch.
• Brush: drag over lines to rub out what is under the brush. Set the brush Size in the option strip.

Merge pieces U

Tap a piece (it turns blue), then the piece next to it. The lead line between them is removed and they become one piece. It works even where hand-drawn lines overlap or don't quite meet, and leftover line ends are trimmed. If the two don't touch, or other pieces would join too, nothing changes and a message says why.

Shapes: rectangle R, ellipse E, polygon G, star S, heart, leaf, diamond

Drag a box to draw the shape. Shift makes a square or circle. Polygon has a Sides setting; star has Points and Inner (how deep the points go). Shapes are lead lines only: paint them with the Fill tool.

Bevels, rondels and jewels J

Pick the kind and size in the option strip, then click to place it. Lines that touch it become its edges. Pre-made pieces are left out of the cut files unless you ask for them.

Paint glass B

• Choose a glass on the Glass tab. Hover to see the area that will fill, click to fill it.
• Alt-click picks up a piece's glass. Right-click clears a piece.
• Grain° sets which way streaks run in newly painted pieces.

Grain direction D

Drag across a painted piece to set which way the streaks or texture run. Grain arrows print on the pattern so you can lay the piece on the glass the right way.

Jump rings O

Marks where to solder the rings the piece hangs from. See Jump rings.

Pan H

Drag to move around the drawing. Holding Space does the same with any tool.

Mirror drawing M

• Mirror in the option strip: Left–right, Top–bottom or Four ways. Everything you draw is copied across the dashed mirror line as you draw.
• Drag the round mirror pin to move the line; ⌖ puts it back in the middle.
• Mirror copy (Project tab, with lines selected) copies lines you have already drawn.

Snap and grid

Snap pulls line ends onto nearby lines, points and the panel edge, so pieces close. Turn it off for free placement. Grid shows a grid (¼" or 5 mm) that points also snap to.

Pieces and design checks

Every closed area between lines is a piece. Pieces are numbered; the numbers print on the pattern and go on the paper template. Turn Numbers off in the option strip to hide them on screen.

Design checks

Checks are warnings, not rules. They show as markers on the drawing and as a list on the Checks tab. Hover or tap a marker to see what it means and the fix buttons.

Each fix is checked straight away. If it doesn't clear the warning, or would cause a new one, it is undone and a message says to change it by hand.

Glass and colour

• The Glass tab holds your glass library. Each glass has a name, colour, type (cathedral, opalescent, wispy, streaky, ring mottle, iridescent, dichroic, mirror, clear), texture, thickness and whether it has grain. New glass and Duplicate add to the library.
• The colour wheel: drag for colour and strength, set brightness with the slider or type a hex code. Every glass in your library is a dot on the wheel. Complementary, analogous and triad colours are one click away, and Closest in library finds the glass you already have nearest to the colour you picked.
• The Design view shows the glass with its colour and texture; the Pattern view shows the black-and-white printed look.

Construction: foil, came and borders

On the Project tab, Lines built with sets how the design is put together. The app takes the right gap out of every piece, so the pieces fit once foiled or leaded.

• All the numbers can be changed: glass thickness, foil width, foil gap, came face and heart. The tab suggests the right foil for your glass thickness.
• Different lines can use different methods: select lines and set Built with, for example foil inside a zinc came frame.
• Border: none, Tiffany foil edge, lead U or H, zinc U or H, brass U. The glass inset is worked out from the came.
• Grind stock leaves extra glass outside the cut line for grinding. Use 0 when you score along a vinyl stencil edge.

Jump rings

Jump rings are the small wire rings soldered to the edge so a suncatcher or panel can hang. The Jump rings tool O marks where they go. The rings show on the drawing, the printed pattern and the colour preview, and the Materials tab counts them. They are never put into a cut file.

Let the app suggest them

1. Pick the ring size: 5 mm, 6 mm (¼"), 8 mm or 10 mm.
2. Pick how many: best for the size, 1 ring or 2 rings. “Best” gives one ring to small light pieces (up to about 6" wide and under 250 g of glass) and two to anything bigger.
3. Press Suggest rings.

• One ring goes straight above the middle of the glass's weight, so the piece hangs level. On a heart that is the dip at the top.
• Two rings go evenly either side of it, about a fifth of the width in from each side.
• If a lead line meets the edge nearby, the ring moves there: a ring soldered at a joint is much stronger. It only moves if the piece still hangs level.
• The message gives a rough weight of the glass (solder adds more).

Placing rings by hand

• Add: tap the outside edge. A faint blue ring shows where it will go.
• Move: drag a ring; it slides along the edge.
• Remove: tap a ring. Clear rings removes them all.

On the printed pattern each ring is a purple circle with a small tick across the edge at the solder point. Rings stay where you put them, so if you change the outside edge later, press Suggest rings again or drag them back.

Mosaic

Set Lines built with to Mosaic grout gap on the Project tab. Lines become grout lines and every area fills with tiles automatically.

• Layouts: Grid, Brick, Flow (rows follow the outline) and Random crazy paving.
• Edge rows: 0–3 rows of tiles that follow each outline before the fill, the classic way to make a subject stand out.
• Per-area layout: the Fill tool's Tiles menu sets the layout for the area you paint, for example Flow for the subject and Grid for the background.
• Tile size, grout gap, grid angle, grout colour and tile colour variation are on the Project tab.
• The Materials tab counts tiles per glass (whole and cut), sheet strips, grout, backer board and adhesive.
• For the indirect (reverse) method, the pattern and colour preview can be mirrored; the writing stays readable.

3D projects

3D project (top bar) builds things made of flat glass panels:

• Panel lamp shade: 3–16 sides, up to 3 tiers, with presets for common sizes. One design on every panel, or two that alternate.
• Lantern or terrarium: walls, a pyramid roof with an overhang, and an optional glass base.
• Jewellery box: lid, front, back, two ends and a mirror base, with hinge positions marked and the lid chain length worked out.
• Cone shade: unrolled into a flat arc and split into 1–8 sections.

Each panel (A, B, C…) has its own design and a quantity. The strip above the drawing switches panels. Piece numbers carry the panel letter (A3 is panel A, piece 3). 3D preview on the Project tab shows the finished piece: drag to turn it and use “light it up”. Assembly numbers (panel angles, cap size, rim length) appear in the dialog and on the printed pattern, and exports and materials cover every panel.

Exporting

Press Export in the top bar and pick what you want on the left. The options for it appear on the right, then press Download.

Cutter files (vinyl and paper)

• Format: SVG (lines the cutter follows directly) or PNG (a picture the cutter software traces).
• Lines: single, one cut down the middle of each lead line (best for a stencil), or pieces, each piece on its own, shrunk for the gap.
• PNG line thickness: 5, 10, 15 or 20 pixels, or the gap width. A thick single line traces as one cut, not two.
• Resolution: every PNG saves its dpi inside the file, so cutter software opens it at the true size.
• Mirror: flips the design, for scoring on the back of textured glass.
• The File size box shows exactly how big the design should measure after import.

Using a vinyl stencil

1. Import the vinyl cut file into your cutter software and check the size.
2. Cut the vinyl. Weed or peel each piece.
3. Stick each piece on its glass (smooth side), score along the vinyl edge, break, and grind back to the vinyl.

Printing the pattern

Print the pattern at 100% / actual size, never “fit to page”. Measure the scale square (1 in or 25 mm) on the print to check. A pattern bigger than the paper prints across several sheets in most PDF and image viewers (“poster” or “tile” printing).

Materials list

The Materials tab adds up what to buy:

• Glass per colour: number of pieces, their numbers, the area, and the area to buy with waste added (change the Waste allowance percentage, 25% to start with).
• Pre-made pieces: bevels, rondels and jewels by size.
• Supplies: copper foil length, came strips (6 ft), border came, a rough solder guide, jump rings, and for 3D projects hinges, chain, vase caps and rim wire.

Download CSV saves the list for a spreadsheet.

Saving and opening

• Your work autosaves in the browser all the time, and comes back when you reopen the app.
• Save Ctrl+S keeps a .cgd project file. In Chrome and Edge the first save asks where; after that Save writes straight back to the same file. Save as Ctrl+Shift+S makes a new file. Other browsers (and the iPad) download the file instead.
• Open Ctrl+O loads a .cgd file.

Installing, iPad and Apple Pencil

Installing the app

Open crafty-glass-designer.pages.dev, then:

• Windows or Mac (Chrome or Edge): the install icon in the address bar, or ⋮ menu → Install Crafty Glass Designer.
• iPad or iPhone (Safari): Share → Add to Home Screen.
• Android (Chrome): ⋮ menu → Install app.

Once installed it works without the internet. Updates arrive the next time it opens online; on an iPad, close the app fully and reopen it to pick up an update.

iPad and touch

• Pinch to zoom, drag with two fingers to move, double-tap with two fingers to undo.
• ☰ hides the side panel to give the drawing more room.
• Apple Pencil: the first time the pencil touches the drawing, palm rejection turns on. From then on only the pencil draws; one finger does nothing and two fingers zoom and move. A hand resting on the screen is ignored. Reload the app to let fingers draw again.

Keyboard shortcuts

Troubleshooting

An area didn't become a piece

Its lines don't quite close. Look for a red “line ends in the glass” marker and use Extend to next line, or drag the line end onto the other line with Snap on. In an empty (free-form) design, only closed areas are glass.

The cutter cuts a double line

Use a Cutter file with Lines: single. With a PNG, pick a thicker line (10 px or more) so the trace finds one line, not the two edges of a thin one.

The cut file comes in the wrong size

Check the size shown in the export window against the size after import. For PNGs, set the import dpi to the one in the file name. For the whole-panel vinyl file, measure the scale square.

A piece is too small or too thin to cut

Use Merge into neighbour on its warning, or the Merge pieces tool U.

The iPad doesn't show a new feature

Close the app fully (swipe it away) and open it again while online.

Fingers won't draw on the iPad

Palm rejection is on because the Apple Pencil was used. Reload the app to let fingers draw again.

Reporting a problem or idea

Report (top bar) takes a screenshot of the drawing. Pick Problem, Feature idea or Question, add a note, and choose whether to include the screenshot and the design file. Email it opens a message in your mail app with the details filled in; the screenshot is on the clipboard, so click in the message and paste it. On tablets, Share… sends it with attachments through the share sheet.

Crafty Glass Designer · version 1.0