Shape Tools

Shape Tools (Creator and Performance mode) generate geometric XY content independently of audio input. Use them as layers in the compositor, as modulation targets, or as standalone sources.

How do I draw my own XY shapes?Copy Anchor Link

In OSC-1, select CREATOR and open DRAWING to author freehand or straight-line shapes with a mouse, touch or pen. Separate strokes stay separate, and PLAY DRAWING sends the drawing to the XY display. The left channel is X and the right channel is Y. Drawings stay while changing modes or opening and closing panels. Projects and recovery snapshots retain drawings, including unfinished lines. Restoring a drawing does not start playback.

1. Select CREATOR and open DRAWING.
2. Choose FREEHAND to drag a stroke, or LINES to tap successive points.
3. Lift after a freehand stroke, or press END STROKE or Escape after a line shape.
4. Use UNDO or Ctrl/Command+Z to remove the last point or completed stroke; use CLEAR → CLEAR DRAWING to start over, or KEEP DRAWING to cancel.
5. Press PLAY DRAWING and adjust TRACE SPEED; press STOP DRAWING before editing.
6. Use SAVE DRAWING to keep an editable drawing file, or OPEN DRAWING to restore one.
7. Open EXPORT for the available SVG, WAV, video and ILDA output options.

Stereo XY audio can leave faint travel lines between strokes. Drawing does not close an open shape automatically. Use SVG / ICONS for existing vector artwork or image tracing, and TEXT TOOLS for text.

How do I save or reopen a drawing?Copy Anchor Link

SAVE DRAWING downloads an editable .beamtracer-drawing file containing the strokes, unfinished line, drawing mode and trace speed. OPEN DRAWING restores that file without starting sound. Drawings also belong to their OSC-1 project: switching projects, reopening the browser or importing a .beamtracer project restores the corresponding drawing.

1. Open CREATOR → DRAWING and press SAVE DRAWING.
2. Press OPEN DRAWING and choose a .beamtracer-drawing file.
3. Choose REPLACE DRAWING to replace current strokes, or KEEP DRAWING to cancel.
4. Press PLAY DRAWING when ready to preview; restoring never starts playback.
5. Use SAVE DRAWING for editable strokes, or EXPORT for SVG, WAV, video and ILDA output options.

Unreadable or unsupported drawing files leave the current drawing intact. Drawing files support up to 1,000 strokes and 100,000 points and must be 5 MB or smaller. The editable drawing format is specific to BeamTracer; use SVG / ICONS to import ordinary SVG artwork. An exported SVG is artwork, rather than an editable drawing file.

Morph SequencerCopy Anchor Link

A visual wavetable sequencer for shapes. Add up to 16 slots — each slot holds a vector shape — and sweep the POSITION slider (0–100%) to morph smoothly between them.

Controls:

• SLOTS — add shapes to the grid (up to 16)
• POSITION — where you are in the morph, 0–100%
• LOOP MODE — CLAMP, WRAP, or PINGPONG
• PRESETS — GEOMETRIC, ORGANIC, SHARP starter slot sets
• RESET MORPH SEQUENCER — clear everything

MIDI: Each slot has its own MIDI Learn button (M) — map slots to notes or pads to play shape changes like an instrument.

Shape SynthCopy Anchor Link

Draw a closed path on the canvas — this path is then converted to an audio signal that drives the XY display. The path becomes the shape the oscilloscope renders.

How it works: The path is resampled as X and Y sample streams. The left channel carries X coordinates, the right channel carries Y coordinates. Result: a stable, controllable geometric form.

Use cases:

• Custom Lissajous-like shapes not achievable with pure synthesis
• Corporate logo shapes as XY audio
• Create audio that draws specific symbols

Shape Synth output can be exported as a WAV file using the Export function.

Shape MorphCopy Anchor Link

Transitions smoothly from Shape A to Shape B with a configurable easing curve:

• Linear — constant rate A→B
• Ease In / Ease Out / Ease In/Out — accelerating, decelerating, or S-curve motion
• Bounce — settles with a bounce at the end
• Elastic — overshoots and springs into place

A separate BEND section warps the morph geometrically, with Shape and Path bend modes.

Use in combination with the Step Sequencer to create timed A→B shape transitions during a performance.

Writing textCopy Anchor Link

Text moved to its own section: TEXT TOOLS, directly below SHAPE TOOLS, writes words with any Google Font, a Hershey single-stroke face or the HANDWRITING letter style, and animates them with WRITE, TRACER and GLITCH. See Text Tools.

Dwell — brightness and tone from the same controlCopy Anchor Link

An oscilloscope has no brightness input you can use from a stereo signal, but it does not need one: the beam is brighter wherever it lingers. Dwell slows the beam over part of the figure and speeds it up elsewhere, which lights that part up. The path stays the same — only how fast the beam moves around it changes.

• Dwell — how strong the effect is, shown as how much brighter the slow part gets (about 10x at 0.9, 20x at the top of the range). At 0 the control does nothing.
• Zones — how many slow spots there are around the figure.
• Hotspot — where they sit. Sweep it to send a highlight traveling around the shape.

At strong settings the fast part of the figure gets only a few samples, so a curve there can draw as straight segments across the shape.

The illustrated version, with photos of the same figure at each setting: Controlling brightness with no brightness control.

The reason Zones matters is that it changes what the control is. At one zone you are adjusting brightness. Turn it up and you are adjusting tone instead: speeding the beam up and slowing it down several times per cycle rewrites the sound completely while leaving the picture untouched — because on a scope the sound does not come from what the shape looks like, it comes from the path used to draw it.

Because this only changes timing, it works on every shape, and it survives export: the brightness is carried in the stereo signal itself, so it still looks right on someone else's oscilloscope.

Trace, Dash and Order — the phase effectsCopy Anchor Link

These three change when the beam is at each point, never where the points are. That makes them shape-independent: they work identically on a circle, an imported logo, a 3D wireframe or a piece of text, and none of them can break the drawing.

• Trace — how much of the figure is drawn. FULL is off. At 25% you get a quarter of the shape, and the beam races back to the start across the gap, leaving a faint return line.
• Dash — how many strokes the line is broken into. OFF (1) is a solid line.
• Dash Len — how much of each step is actually drawn. Appears once Dash is above 1.
• Phase Offset — rotates the finished pattern around the figure. Sweep it and the traced arc or the dash pattern travels.
• Order — whether Trace or Dash is applied first.

Order is a real control, not a formality. With Trace at 50% and Dash at 4: trace-first gives you two dashes confined to the visible half, because the trace happens before the line is divided. Dash-first spaces four dashes around the whole figure and then shows you half of that, so they appear closer together. Same numbers, different picture, different sound. When only one of the two is switched on the orders genuinely are identical, and the panel says "no effect yet" rather than pretending otherwise.

Dashes come out brighter than the line they were cut from. Each dash covers less of the shape but takes the same time, so the beam moves more slowly along it and hurries across the gap. That also means the gaps are faint rather than empty — a stereo signal has no way to switch the beam off. On a laser, Auto-Blanking under Laser Output gives you real gaps.

Round to Shape — make any track draw this shapeCopy Anchor Link

Off by default. Switch it on and every incoming sample is moved to the nearest point on the selected shape, so a track that was never made for an oscilloscope draws a steady figure instead of a squiggle. The shape it snaps to is whichever one is selected in the Source row above.

It applies only to audio you bring in — a loaded file, a shared browser tab, or a live input. It never touches the sources OSC-1 generates itself: Shape Morph, Expression, the oscillator and the synth already draw exact geometry, so there is nothing to straighten and snapping them would replace what they were drawing.

This changes only what the scope and the laser see. The audio going to your speakers and to the room is untouched, so you can use it on a live set without altering what the audience hears.

Leave it off for music that was authored for a scope — that music already draws its own picture, and snapping replaces it with the target shape.

Copies — several objects from one signalCopy Anchor Link

An oscilloscope draws with a single beam that is never lifted, so playing two sounds at once does not give you two shapes: the signals add together and you get one path that is neither. Copies works around that. It divides each trace cycle into slices and draws the shape once per slice, at a different position, fast enough to read as several objects at the same time. Everything stays in the stereo signal, so it survives export, playback on a hardware scope, and the laser path.

• Copies — 1 to 16. At 1 the control does nothing.
• Layout — Row, Column, Grid, Ring, or Fractal placement. Copies shrink automatically as they spread, so they stay on screen.
• Spread — how far apart the copies sit.
• Display — ALL draws every copy; FOCUS gives one selected copy the full trace cycle.
• Focus — selects a copy, with continuous positions blending between neighbors.
• Crossfade — 0 switches hard at the midpoint; 1 blends across the whole interval.

Two things the panel tells you while you drag:

The interval. Drawing a shape in 3 places makes its waveform repeat 3 times per cycle, which is a 3:1 frequency ratio — a fifth plus an octave. The chord is not added on top of the picture, it is the picture. The panel names the interval next to the count.

The redraw rate. Copies share a fixed amount of beam time, so each one is redrawn at the trace rate divided by the number of copies. The panel shows the per-copy rate and warns below about 30 Hz, where a figure starts to look like it is flickering rather than standing still. If you want more copies, raise Speed to buy the time back.

Copies, Spread, Focus, and Crossfade can all learn MIDI or OSC control. FOCUS raises the selected copy back to the full redraw rate, which removes the divided-rate flicker cost while you perform the sweep.

The stereo signal still carries the travel between copies. Vector Display and Amber CRT hide those connector spans automatically while preserving the intended shapes; other displays may still make the journey visible. Fewer, closer copies make the travel shorter.

3D ImportCopy Anchor Link

Import 3D model files with Import File or Import GLTF Folder and render them as XY wire-frame audio. The model's edges are traced as the XY beam path.

What happens: The 3D mesh edges are unwrapped into a continuous XY path. A loaded model opens in a 3D preview first; click 3D PREVIEW ON to switch the preview off and the scope traces the model as an oscilloscope signal.

If the file contains embedded animation, open Animation to choose a clip, play or pause it, change its speed, switch between Once, Loop, and Ping-Pong, or scrub to an exact pose. The Animation header includes the loaded model name. Clip, play, speed, playback mode, and time all support MIDI and OSC Learn. The 3D preview, traced signal, WAV export, and video export follow the same selected clip and timing. Export length comes from the clip automatically; choose how many complete loops you want instead of estimating seconds.

For the simplest animated import, choose a .glb: it normally contains the model and animation in one file. If only a .gltf is available, import its complete folder or select the .gltf and .bin together. After it loads, select an Embedded Clip under Animation and press Play Clip. A rigged model can still be static; if no clips appear, the file was exported without embedded animation. See Animated-file quick start for troubleshooting.

Supported formats: GLTF and GLB only (.gltf, .glb). A GLB normally contains the complete model and loads through Import File. When a GLTF references a separate .bin, select both files together or use Import GLTF Folder to choose the model's complete folder. Textures are optional for the XY wire-frame. Built-in shapes (Cube, Cone, Sphere, Torus, Trio, Blocks) are available for experimenting without a model file. Trio and Blocks are small arrangements of separate objects, useful for seeing how the tracer handles one object passing behind another.

Imports are checked before loading. Unrelated files in a selected folder are ignored, remote buffer links are rejected, and oversized or unusually complex models show an error instead of opening. Prefer a self-contained .glb; for .gltf, select only the scene and its required .bin files when you know them. See 3D Import Settings for the file, folder, and model-complexity limits.

Hide hidden lines: On by default, under Path Optimization. The trace draws the model as a solid object — edges that sit behind nearer geometry are left out, the way you would draw it by hand. Turn it off for a see-through wire-frame look.

Every control is documented in 3D Import Settings — edge modes, edge threshold, mesh detail, and the real-hardware scan limits.

Tips:

• Low-poly models work best — high-poly models create thousands of edge segments and very high scan load
• Models should be centered at origin before import
• Use View Controls under 3D IMPORT (rotation, zoom, auto-rotate) to find the best viewing angle for XY

3D CameraCopy Anchor Link

The 3D CAMERA widget appears in the Expression generator while its z = field is filled in, as in the 3D patterns (Helix 3D, Torus Knot 3D and the rest), and controls how that curve is projected to the XY plane. Imported 3D models use View Controls under 3D IMPORT instead.

• PRESETS — FRONT, ISOMETRIC, TOP, ORBIT, SIDE, DRAMATIC
• POSITION — Distance, 1–10
• ORIENTATION — Pitch (−90° to 90°), Yaw and Roll (−180° to 180°)
• AUTO-ROTATE — on/off, axis (X/Y/Z), speed 0–3 r/s
• PROJECTION — PERSP, ORTHO, or STEREO mode, with FOV 30–120° in perspective mode

Camera parameters are MIDI-learnable, so you can orbit a 3D expression live from hardware knobs.

SVG / IconsCopy Anchor Link

Import an SVG file, trace a PNG, JPEG or other image, or search the Iconify library (200,000+ icons) to use as a shape source. The SVG paths are converted to an XY beam path. Redundant samples along straight runs are condensed automatically while corners, diagonals, separate outlines, and smooth curves stay intact.

OSC-1 ignores unsupported interactive metadata in an SVG while keeping its drawable paths, so artwork exported with extra animation attributes can still load as a static beam shape.

How do I trace a PNG or JPG onto the scope?Copy Anchor Link

Drop a PNG, JPEG, WebP, GIF, BMP or AVIF file on the SVG / ICONS drop zone, or click it to browse. OSC-1 traces the image to vector outlines with the same tracer as Image to Laser, and the beam draws them as soon as the trace finishes; the drop zone reads Tracing image… meanwhile. An SVG file is drawn directly, without tracing.

An IMAGE TRACE panel appears under the drop zone while an image is loaded. Every change re-traces the image and redraws the beam:

• SOURCE IMAGE — open it to see the original image.
• Trace style — Outlines — filled artwork traces around each colored area; Center line — line drawings draws each line once, along its center.
• Center line width — shown for Center line only: strokes up to this width (1 to 100 source pixels, default 12) are drawn as a single line; wider areas keep their outlines.
• Background — Auto — border color (the default) drops the color that fills the image's edge; Keep all colors, Remove white and Remove black choose for you.
• Colors — the most colors to separate, 2 to 32 (default 8). Fewer colors merge areas into simpler outlines.
• Curve tolerance — 0.1 to 4 (default 1.5). Lower values follow small details; higher values simplify curves.
• Remove speckles — 0 to 100 (default 2). Drops tiny marks; 0 keeps even the smallest.
• The readout under the sliders shows the image size and how many shapes and colors the trace found.

The traced outlines play as one beam, so Colors only decides which areas become separate outlines. TRACE SPEED, DRAW MODE, SAVE TO LIBRARY and RESET SVG work the same as for an SVG. Images up to 10 MB are accepted.

See BT Laser Studio's Image to Laser guide for tips on preparing SVG files for clean vector paths.

LottieCopy Anchor Link

Play a Lottie vector animation as the beam. In CREATOR (or PERFORMANCE) mode, open IMPORT SHAPES → LOTTIE, then drop a .json or .lottie file on the drop zone (or click it to browse), or click STAR or BALL under EXAMPLES. The animation starts playing at once, at the file's own frame rate, and loops. The dot on the LOTTIE card lights green while the animation is the playing source.

Controls:

• PLAY / PAUSE — start or stop the animation
• FRAME — scrub to any frame (scrubbing pauses playback); the readout shows the frame and the total
• SPEED — playback speed from 0.25× to 2.00× of the file's frame rate
• TRACE SPEED — how quickly each frame is redrawn: SMOOTH, NORMAL, FAST (the default) or ULTRA. A new frame waits for the one on the scope to finish drawing, so every frame is drawn whole at any speed, on the scope, on a laser and in the output preview. A slower speed draws smoother lines but shows fewer of the animation's frames; FAST shows nearly every frame of a 30 fps animation
• RESET LOTTIE — clear the animation and stop it

Each frame keeps the file's own framing, so a shape that moves or grows moves or grows on the scope instead of being re-fitted to the screen. Starting another source (an SVG, a generator, a track) takes over the scope and pauses the Lottie. With LASER OUTPUT connected, the animation goes to the laser like any other OSC-1 source.

What is drawn: shape layers — paths, rectangles, ellipses, stars and polygons — with their groups, precompositions and parent layers; animated position, scale, rotation and anchor point; trim paths; and repeaters. Filled shapes are traced around their edge. Not drawn: image, text and solid layers, effects, masks, track mattes, expressions, time remapping, skew, and the round corners, merge paths, offset paths, pucker and bloat, twist and zig zag shape effects. The panel lists any of these your file uses under the file name. A .lottie file plays its first animation; files up to 10 MB and the first 1,800 frames are supported.

Tektronix 4051 LibraryCopy Anchor Link

The Tektronix 4051 was a 1970s vector graphics computer. This panel plays a curated library of vector graphics in the 4051's coordinate system as XY audio:

• Quick Presets dropdown — grouped into Technical, Classic Patterns, Text Logos, and Animations
• Tektronix 4051 Demo Files dropdown — Sci-Fi and Classic demo sets
• TRACE SPEED slider — from CRAWL through SLOW, NORMAL, and FAST to ULTRA (MIDI-learnable)

Further ReadingCopy Anchor Link