Fixture Maker

Blue-tier tool · Tools ▸ Fixture Maker · shipped in ALPS 0.1.118

What it does

Fixture Maker turns a photo of parts on your laser bed into a jig — a cut outline that holds those exact parts in place. Lay your parts down, take (or open) a photo, click each part in the picture, and ALPS cuts a fixture that locates them for you. Next time you run the job, drop the parts into the jig and everything is already positioned — no re-measuring, no re-aligning by eye.

Why you'd want it

Repeat jobs on odd-shaped parts normally mean lining each piece up by hand every single run. It's slow, and it drifts — a part that's a hair off throws the whole run. The old fix was to make a jig by hand: measure every part, draw it in CAD, cut it. Fixture Maker replaces all of that with a photo and a few clicks.

Before you start

You need a photo of the parts sitting on the bed. Two ways to get one:

• Best — the Capture chip. In the editor, turn on the camera overlay and use the Capture chip on the canvas to drop a true-scale still of the bed. This is the accurate path: the still is sized to your real bed, so the jig comes out the right size (see Accuracy below).
• Or open/drop a photo. Fixture Maker can also open or drag-and-drop a photo straight from its start screen — handy for trying it out or working from a photo you already have. Fixture Maker never opens the camera itself; it works from a picture that already exists.

Step by step

1. Lay the parts on the bed the way you want the jig to hold them.
2. Get the bed photo — Capture chip (recommended) or open/drop a photo.
3. Open Tools ▸ Fixture Maker.
4. Click each part in the photo. A colored ring highlights what it picked up, and the part is added to the list on the right with its measured size.
5. Tune if needed:
   • Tolerance — how different a pixel can be from the spot you clicked and still count as the same part. Raise it if a click grabs only part of the piece; lower it if the selection bleeds onto the bare bed.
   • Clicked the wrong thing? Remove that part from the list (the ✕) or hit Clear to start the selections over.
6. Set the Margin — how much clearance to leave around each part between its outline and the cut line. 0 is tight to the part; bump it up for an easier drop-in fit.
7. Apply. Every selected part becomes one hairline CUT path, all added in a single undo step — one Undo removes the whole fixture if you change your mind.

Leave Keep photo after Apply checked if you want the reference photo to stay in the job; uncheck it to drop the photo and keep just the cut paths.

Good to know

• Cut paths are hairline CUT. Fixture Maker draws the geometry; the actual speed/power/material settings still come from your job as normal.
• Accuracy depends on a true-scale photo. The jig is only as accurate as the photo's scale. A Capture-chip still from a calibrated camera is true-scale, so the fixture comes out correctly sized. A random imported photo isn't scaled to your bed — great for trying the tool, not for a jig you'll cut and rely on.
• It won't isolate the bare bed. If you click empty bed (or a low-contrast spot), it tells you rather than inventing a part — click nearer the part's center or raise Tolerance.

Verified end-to-end 2026-07-27 (empty state → import → click-isolate → Apply). The camera-capture-to-true-scale half is exercised on real hardware; everything from the photo onward is confirmed. See docs/verification/fixture-maker/.