Geometric Alchemy: The Wizzard of Awes' Full Guide to Multi-Geometry Rasterizer Jobs
This guide follows one complete production-minded Rasterizer workflow from tested laser settings to a reviewed multi-geometry LightBurn project. It starts with Material Library and Swatch Palette preparation because artwork cannot be routed safely until Rasterizer knows which setting belongs to each swatch.
Choose the settings source before the artwork
Decide whether the job will use a freshly uploaded LightBurn Material Library, a saved Color or Hatch Palette from Swatch Palette Vault, or SVG-Only output. A multi-geometry .lbrn2 project requires tested LightBurn settings; SVG-Only can prove geometry but leaves every production setting for you to assign later.
Use an uploaded .clb for a temporary guest workflow or a library you do not need to save in Rasterizer. Use Swatch Palette Vault when you want explicit reusable setting-to-swatch assignments, persistent member preferences, and direct palette selection on later jobs.
Prepare the LightBurn Material Library for import or upload
Before changing any descriptions or settings, clone your existing Material Library in LightBurn's Material Library interface. Then browse to the cloned .clb file on your computer and copy it into a separate backup location without altering it. Give the backup a clear name and date so you can always restore your original library if anything goes wrong.
Keep the untouched backup outside the location you will edit. LightBurn can show cloned libraries with the same or very similar names, so it is easy to edit the wrong clone or accidentally overwrite an existing library. Confirm the full file location before making changes, then make all Rasterizer-specific edits only in the working copy.
In LightBurn, organize the tested settings beneath one material. Rasterizer searches the selected material and can use matching entries with any thickness value, but a correct setting stored under another material is not an available match.
Rename each entry's Description to the official Rasterizer swatch it should serve: for example Black, Dark Red, Red, Orange, Blue, White, Labels, or Fauxlographic. Description matching is case-insensitive but the complete name must identify the intended swatch. Rename duplicate Descriptions so every selectable setting is distinct. Do not depend on the displayed layer color or a parent folder name.
Keep the full LightBurn CutSetting intact: cut mode, minimum and maximum power, speed, frequency, q-pulse duration when explicitly present, line interval, passes, scan angle, bidirectional, crosshatch, and angles per pass. Rasterizer should copy valid values rather than guess missing device defaults.
For the ordinary filled MOPA color settings used by Rasterizer, I have had the best combination of engraving quality and time on the laser when Flood Fill is enabled for every color setting. I recommend trying Flood Fill in the working library and validating the result on your own machine and material. A Fauxlographic setting used for Krasnow gratings is different: it must remain a Cut/Line operation, so this Flood Fill recommendation does not apply to that carrier setting.
Leave unfinished template entries disabled and marked UNCONFIGURED. Configure the included Labels entry when generated labels should use a dedicated setting. Configure the included Fauxlographic entry only when Krasnow Grating will be used; the Fauxlographic setting is the carrier anchor cloned to the diffraction layers.
Start with the blank palette library workflow if building the expected LightBurn structure by hand would be error-prone.
Import and map a reusable Swatch Palette
For saved operation, open Swatch Palette Vault and import the .clb as a Color Palette or create the appropriate palette type. Confirm the palette-wide material name beneath the type badge. Material is a property of the whole palette and is not edited separately on every settings row.
Open each inline setting editor and verify the supported production fields. Assign each setting to exactly one official Rasterizer swatch using the swatch assignment control. A Description that already matches an official swatch can seed the import mapping, but the saved assignment shown in the Vault is authoritative afterward.
Leave a setting Unassigned when Rasterizer must not use it. Confirm that the Fauxlographic and Labels special entries are present when the planned workflow needs them. Save, navigate away, return, and verify that the assignments and edited values persist before using the palette in a production job.
Alternative: upload the library directly
On the Rasterizer page, choose Upload a new LightBurn Material Library, select the .clb file, and then select the material from the populated Material name list. The material selector appears directly beneath the upload because it controls which portion of the file is searched.
Direct uploads do not have an account-backed assignment map. Rasterizer makes a swatch available only when the selected material contains an entry whose Description matches that Rasterizer swatch; the entry may use any thickness value. If expected colors are dimmed or unavailable, correct the Descriptions in LightBurn and upload the revised library.
Prepare source artwork deliberately
Prefer a clean PNG or another supported raster format with strong intentional shapes. Remove compression noise, tiny stray pixels, unintended background colors, and text that is too small for the chosen physical pixel size. Multi-geometry output is easiest to control when the source already has meaningful color regions.
If the source uses transparency, verify that transparent pixels are genuinely transparent rather than white or black. If a photograph has many near-duplicate colors, plan to use the quantized preview and a conservative set of enabled swatches instead of assuming every visual shade deserves a separate laser layer.
Crop the artwork before quantization
Load the artwork and use Rectangle, Square, Oval, or Circle from Crop shape. Drag the selection, then move it by dragging inside or resize it from a corner. A valid selection applies automatically when the form is submitted. Crop preview is optional and lets you inspect the cropped source immediately; Reset crop returns to the original file.
Use Crop transparency when the useful artwork is surrounded by transparent pixels. It trims exterior transparency and preserves transparent holes inside the subject, so neither the preview nor the output creates geometry for those pixels. The quantized preview displays transparency with a checkerboard background.
Circle and Oval crops make pixels outside the curved boundary transparent. The output is therefore cropped to the same shape; it is not a rectangular image with Black corners. Always regenerate the quantized preview after changing the crop.
Set processing resolution and physical size
Set Pixel size in millimeters, then provide either Processing width or Processing height in pixels and leave the other dimension at zero. Rasterizer preserves the cropped source aspect ratio and calculates the missing dimension. The physical engraving size is processing pixels multiplied by Pixel size.
Processing resolution controls sampled detail and geometric complexity. Physical Pixel size controls the initial project scale. Do not confuse the two: doubling processing width adds detail and objects, while doubling physical Pixel size doubles the output dimensions without creating new source detail.
Use the preview rulers as calculated millimeter references, not a promise of true physical size on a monitor. Begin at or above the laser's effective spot size. Excessively small pixels can create overlapping exposure, huge projects, long processing, and worse engraving rather than additional useful detail.
Select only usable Rasterizer swatches
Enable the swatches that the source may quantize to. For a saved Color Palette, only explicitly assigned official swatches are available. For a direct library upload, only matching Descriptions in the selected material are available. Dimmed or unassigned swatches cannot be restored merely with Select all.
Fewer well-separated swatches often produce cleaner regions and fewer LightBurn layers. Keep Black only if the artwork needs a Black setting or ordinary Black outlines. Verify that every enabled swatch has a safe tested setting before launching a Material Library-backed job.
Choose color matching and inspect the preview
Balanced is a general-purpose match. Prioritize hue keeps assignments in the same color family more strongly, Separate shades emphasizes lightness differences, Closest swatch uses direct RGB distance, and Custom lets you weight hue, saturation, and shade independently. There is no universal best mode because screen color and laser-produced material color are different systems.
Generate the quantized preview at the requested processing dimensions. Inspect the checkerboard transparency, calculated dimensions, swatch usage counts, large color boundaries, and small features. If an obviously blue region maps to teal, compare matching modes and remove misleading candidate swatches before compensating with geometry controls.
The preview predicts palette ownership, not the physical color the laser will produce. That physical result still comes from the assigned LightBurn setting, material, focus, and process.
Choose the Image Style first
Image Style is the preprocessing and region-construction stage. Cartoon favors graphic regions, Color Photo preserves more photographic separation, Black and White Photo prepares monochrome work, No geometric effect minimizes additional styling, and ordinary abstract styles deliberately transform the source before final geometry is chosen.
Adjust the Image Style controls while thinking about the shapes that should reach the routing stage. Minimum Island Area removes tiny connected regions and transfers their pixels to the touching swatch with the most shared pixel edges. Simplification and smoothing can reduce path complexity but may erase small intentional features.
Specialized styles that already produce final geometry, including Halftone Newsprint, Optical Color Mix, and the dedicated Krasnow Grating filter, do not support another Geometry Style stage. Use Krasnow Grating as the Geometry Style instead of the dedicated filter when the goal is multi-geometry routing.
Choose by swatch under Geometry Style
Select Choose by swatch to reveal one routing card for every enabled palette swatch. Each card can use Vectors, Glyphs, or Krasnow. Select multiple cards and use Selected to Vectors, Selected to Glyphs, or Selected to Krasnow for a bulk assignment, then refine individual rows.
Begin by leaving every swatch on Vectors. Move one visually distinct group to Glyphs and one to Krasnow. This makes the first comparison easy to understand and reduces the chance of mistaking a source-processing problem for a geometry-control problem.
Black remains fixed as Normal Vectors in mixed routing. This prevents a second Black treatment or backing region from occupying the same positive area as transformed colors. Every other prepared source region receives exactly one treatment before export.
Configure the shared Glyph section
The Glyph settings section appears when at least one swatch is assigned to Glyphs. Shape selects the solid symbol. Cell Size controls matrix spacing. Minimum and Maximum Glyph Ratio control the smallest and largest marks within a cell. Non-Black Glyph Density can increase colored engraved area where small color marks would otherwise be too faint.
Tone Curve and Contrast redistribute how source tone changes glyph size. Grid Angle rotates the shared matrix, Glyph Rotation rotates each glyph within its cell, and Seed makes deterministic variation repeatable. Invert reverses the tone-to-size relationship. Black Only sends glyph marks to Black and is generally inappropriate for per-swatch color routing.
Invert Fill keeps each swatch's continuous vector region and subtracts glyph-shaped holes from it. Use it for perforated or punched texture. Rasterizer resolves layer ownership so the cutouts do not become a second overlapping setting.
Configure the shared Krasnow Grating section
The Krasnow Grating settings section appears when at least one swatch is assigned to Krasnow. Confirm the selected palette has a Fauxlographic Cut Setting. Patch Size controls physical cells; Cell Shape controls their tiling or decorative silhouette; Line Spacing controls visible paths inside them; Angle Minimum and Maximum define the luminance-driven orientation range.
Hue Rotation, Saturation Cutoff, Fauxlogram Gradient Start, Fauxlogram Gradient End, and Gradient Curve determine how source color and position select carrier layers. Fauxlogram Gradient Scope can span the Entire Artwork or restart within Each Shape. Direction can run Top to Bottom, Bottom to Top, Left to Right, Right to Left, Center to Edge, or Edge to Center; radial directions work with either scope. Hue Line Spacing Minimum and Maximum can vary visible path density by approximate wavelength order. Speed Spread changes carrier speeds around the Fauxlographic setting's one-micron anchor assumption.
Use conservative defaults for the first test and verify every calculated carrier layer in LightBurn. The result depends on the physical machine, optics, surface, focus, lighting, and viewer; the RGB layer colors are organizational labels rather than promises of the observed diffraction hue.
Check the combined ownership before submission
Read the routing grid as a contract: every enabled non-Black swatch has one and only one geometry treatment. Confirm that ordinary text or outlines remain Vectors, the intended patterned areas use Glyphs, and only the intended angular areas use Krasnow.
Regenerate the quantized preview after any crop, size, palette, or matching change. Although it does not draw the final glyphs or gratings, it shows which swatches own the pixels that will enter those treatments. If ownership is wrong here, geometry routing cannot repair it later.
For a first multi-geometry job, reduce the physical size and processing resolution rather than testing the complete large artwork. A representative small crop should include at least one vector region, one glyph region, one Krasnow region, and any transparency edge that matters.
Submit and follow the job
Select Upload and rasterize. The browser uploads the effective cropped artwork and, when applicable, the Material Library or Fauxlographic Palette through short-lived private upload permissions. The job then moves through Pending and Processing while the dedicated worker validates settings, builds regions, applies each geometry treatment, resolves ownership, and exports artifacts.
Signed-in jobs appear in Job History and retain inputs, outputs, logs, and metadata for seven days. Guest Rasterizer jobs stay attached to the open page, count against the five successfully validated jobs per UTC day allowance, and provide download links that expire after fifteen minutes.
A long pause can occur during complex geometry generation, overlap resolution, or LightBurn serialization. Follow changing logs and status rather than assuming the browser itself is performing the server-side work.
Inspect the output geometry
After the job reaches Completed, download whichever output files you want or need. If you use the SVG, open it in a browser or vector editor and verify overall dimensions, aspect ratio, transparency, crop boundary, missing regions, and unintended full-canvas geometry. SVG shows the portable color-separated geometry but does not carry LightBurn laser settings.
Zoom into the representative regions. Normal Vectors should remain closed continuous shapes. Glyph regions should show the selected repeated marks or negative cutouts. Krasnow regions should contain open parallel paths clipped to cells. Regions assigned to different swatches should not share positive engraving area.
Inspect every LightBurn layer
Open the .lbrn2 project and compare its physical size with the preview rulers and SVG. Read the embedded Notes to confirm the job type, crop, Image Style, Geometry Style, selected material, and parameters. Do not run the job merely because it opens without an error.
For every used layer, verify output enabled state, Cut Mode, min and max power, speed, frequency, q-pulse duration when present, line interval, passes, scan angle, bidirectional, crosshatch, and angles per pass. A missing q-pulse value should remain absent when the imported setting omitted it; LightBurn may display a device-profile value on the local machine.
Inspect layer overlap and order at high zoom. Verify that Black is not a backing rectangle beneath transformed colors, that transparency and curved crop corners contain no geometry, and that Invert Fill holes are actual absences rather than shapes assigned to a second laser setting.
Run a material coupon, then a representative crop
Before engraving the complete output, prove every unfamiliar LightBurn setting independently on the exact material. Then engrave a small representative crop containing each geometry treatment. Evaluate edge quality, glyph legibility, diffraction response, heat accumulation, registration, and whether fine open paths survive the machine's effective spot size.
Change one parameter family at a time and save each accepted project revision. Geometry that looks excellent on screen can merge physically, disappear during cleaning, or create excess heat. The engraved coupon is the authority.
Final handoff checklist
The source and crop are correct; transparent areas and holes contain no geometry; the processing dimensions preserve aspect ratio; reported millimeter size is correct; enabled swatches are intentional; quantized ownership looks correct; each routed swatch has one treatment; the Fauxlographic anchor exists when Krasnow is used; all LightBurn settings are within machine limits; and a small physical test has passed.
Keep the final source, .clb or saved-palette identity, Rasterizer job ID, whichever generated output files you use, and material-test notes together. If the project exceeds 50 MB, allow LightBurn time to complete its geometry calculations during Frame, Send, or Start.