Tool bar

Drawing editor offers many tools to create drawings, called „frames“. Clicking on the toolbar will activate those. Drawing tools can be selected one-time (click with your left mouse key) or permanently (Shift + Click with your left mouse key). At permanent selection the tool is active as long as another tool is going to be selected.

One of the most powerful tools is the polygon tool. Hereby new lines are set up until the end of a polygon line is pointed out with the right mouse key. Most likely logos and drawings should be done with the polygon tool in order to create as few as possible open lines. Open lines need blanking as well as stop- and start points, which again can slow down the output.

The various tools

Show and Selection tool (Arrow)

With this tool objects will be selected, moved, enlarged, reduced and so on.

Recoloring an area (pointed square)

An area will be selected by means of a square. Any recoloring actions will only affect contents within this area. After selection, a color has to be picked from the palette. The selected area will now be displayed and put out in chosen color.

Deleting Tool (Trash bin)

Herewith all selected parts within a frames will be deleted. Works with DEL key, too. Click on the object  > DEL > done!

Zoom In (Magnifying glass +)

After selecting these tools, you can zoom in into the images as often as you want to. In order to zoom a square will be drawn onto the desired area. This area will now be enlarged and modifications or details can be viewed and edited. The Zoom tool stays active as long as no other tool is selected.

Zoom Out (Magnifying glass -)

Here again will be zoomed out in steps. The steps are equal to the zoom in-steps.

The Zoom tool stays active as long as no other tool is selected.

Rectangle drawer

After selection of this tool, a rectangle can be drawn. To do so simply click on the first corner point, open a rectangle and anchor it with a second click. If you press SHIFT key while opening a rectangle, you will get a perfect square.

Circle drawer

After selection of this tool, a circle or an oval can be drawn. To do so simply click on the first corner point, open the circle and anchor it with a second click. If you press SHIFT key while opening, you will get a perfectly round circle.

This tool will be reset automatically after it’s been used once. You can lock it permanently at General Options. It will be locked one-time by SHIFT clicking.

Line drawer

With this tool a single line will be drawn. Not suitable for closed objects, logos or similar.

Operation works equal to previous tools.

Freehand

Press and hold the left mouse key and move the cursor across the editor to draw a line. Press STRG key to adjust points to draw to a grid. The size of the grid can be edited in Options.

Text

Click after you have selected the text tool on the position you want your text to appear. A text box opens right beneath the drawing window. This text box enables you to choose a font family and to type some text into the line. Typed text appears in the editor immediately. This text as well as everything else is an object free to edit. Text objects can be edited at any time, even during a show.

The Beam Tool

is very efficient and is used for creating one or more laser beams in order to i.e. taking an effect mirror into account of your show. Every beam consists of a single point, which is repeated several times. Every beam is created with a repeat rate of 40 by default. How often every point is going to be repeated can be adjusted at the “Accent Box“ (described later in this manual). A beam can be moved or change its color at any time.

Loading background images

M-III contains some powerful tools in relation with background images. You can quickly load a background image by pressing the corresponding button. This may be very helpful to create logos. Several bitmap formats can be loaded. But take care: M-III stretches BMP files to a square. If your file is no square, it will be stretched into one direction. Make sure that your file is available in square format. The easiest way to do so is using Paint program from MS Windows.

Show / Hide background image

The laser will not display the image. It will be only used as background image for tracing logos or figures. With this button you can show or hide background images in order to i.e. take a view on your final result or to hide after use.