BrickIT! 1.4 · worked example

From brick panels to a building

A walk through the 🏠 Building window with the smallest useful example: a plain two-storey house. Two walls are drawn by hand, BrickIT! makes the other two, and the carcass, floors, corner keys and building steps follow from those four walls.

OO · 1:76.2120 × 75 mm footprint80 mm to the eaves1 mm skin + 2 mm coreone floor at 38 mm

The one idea: each wall is one layer, and the Building window puts them in order

Up to now a BrickIT! project was one facade, sometimes with reveal layers behind it. For a building, each wall of the building is its own layer in the same project: one for the front, one for the side, and so on.

The Building window then asks one question: in what order do those walls go round the building, and what corner does each one make with the next? Everything else (core lengths, mitres, slot positions, floor sizes) is worked out from that.

Wall 1 is always the front. Then go round with the building on your left hand: stand on the street facing the front, walk to the right, round the corner, along the back and back down the other side.

"Right" and "left" mean as you see them from the street. Each wall's brick is drawn as seen from outside, as it always is in BrickIT!.

1Draw the front wall

Start a new project and draw the front as you would any BrickIT! facade. For the example:

In the Layers list, click the name Front Panel and rename it Front.
Panel Dimensions: width 120, height 80 mm (about 9.1 × 6.1 m full size).
Windows & Doors: a door (X 54, Y 0, 12 × 27) and two windows either side, then three first-floor windows with Y 48. Each is 18 × 20 mm. Press Add Opening after each one.

BrickIT! main window with a 120 by 80 mm front wall: a door, two ground floor windows and three first floor windows — The finished front. Note the layer name, **Front**, in the Layers list on the right of the preview.

Names matter

The Building window reads layer names to guess which wall is which. Names containing front, street or facade go first; right, side, return or east second; back or rear third; left, west or party last. You can always change the order by hand, but good names mean it is usually right first time.

2Add the side wall as a second layer

Click + Add Layer. A new layer called Panel 2 appears and becomes the active one. Rename it Right side, set it to 75 × 80 mm (the same height as the front), and give it one window on each floor (X 30, 15 × 20, at Y 9 and 48).

The side wall in the preview with two windows; the Layers list shows Front and Right side — Untick Show inactive layers (bottom of the Layers list) so you see only the wall you are working on. The front still sits in the project underneath. (This picture was taken later, so it also shows the Back and Left side layers from stage 4.)

Keep the walls the same height so the box finishes level under the roof (a simple triangular gable on a wall is fine). The back and the left side have no windows, so we will let BrickIT! make those.

3Open the Building window

Click 🏠 Building in the bar above the preview, next to Library. The window has settings down the left and the results on the right.

The Building carcass window: four wall rows on the left, core and plate drawings on the right — The first view. It has already guessed a rectangle, put Front in row 1 and Right side in row 2, and left rows 3 and 4 as plain brick with lengths of 120.0 and 75.0 to close the box.

Reading the wall rows

Each row is one wall, in order round the building. The drop-down chooses which layer is that wall, or Plain brick (no panel yet).
then sets the corner this wall makes with the next one. For an ordinary box every corner is outside, 90°. The last row's corner is the one back to wall 1.
↑ ↓ move a wall in the order; ✕ removes it (a building needs at least three).
A plain row has a name box and a length box that says auto. Leave it on auto: BrickIT! works out the lengths that close the footprint. It can do this for up to two plain walls. Here, 120.0 for the back and 75.0 for the left side.

The right-hand side is live. It already shows every core, plate and key, so you can see the result change as you change the settings.

4Name the missing walls and make them panels

A plain row is enough for the carcass, but you still need a brick skin to cut for those walls. Type Back and Left side in the two name boxes, then click Make the plain walls panels.

Rows 3 and 4 named Back and Left side, lengths 120.0 and 75.0, with the orange Make the plain walls panels button — Before: two plain rows, named, with their worked-out lengths.

All four rows now show a layer: Front, Right side, Back, Left side — After: all four rows are real layers, at the right size and height, in the same bond as the front.

Where did they go?

The new layers are added to the project hidden: in the Layers list they show a hollow circle ○ instead of the eye. Click the circle to show one. They are plain brick walls; select one in the main window to add windows or anything else later.

5Check the boards and floors

Boards

Skin (brick) 1 mm MDF: the board the brick skins are cut from.
Core 2 mm: the structural board behind each skin. Floors and corner keys are cut from it too, so the slots fit.
Reveal margin 1 mm: the core's openings are this much bigger all round than the skin's. That makes the ledge a GlazeIT! window drops into.
Slot clearance 0.15 mm: extra room in each slot. Raise it if tabs are tight on your laser.

Floors

From the windows puts a floor under each upper row of windows, a 2 ft 6 in sill (10 mm in OO) below it. Our first-floor windows start at 48 mm, so the floor top is at 38.0 mm. Choose My own levels to type heights instead.

Leave Base plate, Plate under the roof and Corner keys ticked. The plates hold the box square; the keys lock each corner.

Cut sheets is your laser bed size (600 × 400 here).

6Check the parts and save the cut sheets

The Parts and cut sheets tab sums it up in one line: 120.0 × 75.0 mm outside, walls 3.0 mm thick. From the 2 mm board: 4 cores, 3 plates, 8 corner keys, on 1 sheet of 600 × 400.

Drawings of the four cores, three plates and the corner key with their sizes — Every carcass part. The red lines near the core ends are the engraved "sand to" lines for the mitres; the red arrow on each plate points to the front.

Why the sizes are what they are

Part	Size (mm)	Why
Front and Back cores	118.0 × 80.0	The skin's 120, less the 1 mm skin thickness at each end, so the cores meet inside the mitred corner.
Side cores	73.0 × 80.0	75 less 1 mm each end, the same rule.
Base, Floor 1, Roof plate	117.4 × 72.4	The inside of the box (120 − 2 × 3 by 75 − 2 × 3), plus tabs that go into slots in the cores, with the corners notched for the keys.
Corner keys ×8	2 mm board	Triangles that tie each pair of walls together between the plates: a mitre has no overlap for finger joints.

Click Save cut sheets (SVG) or DXF. You get one file per sheet, called carcass-front-sheet-1.svg and so on, in BrickIT!'s usual cut and engrave colours.

The saved carcass sheet: four cores with window openings and slots, three plates and eight corner keys laid out along the top of the board — The saved sheet, cropped to the parts (the full sheet is 600 × 400). The cores are drawn mirrored, seen from inside, so the engraved names and "sand to" lines end up on the inner face.

7Cut the brick skins

The carcass sheets are only the 2 mm board. The 1 mm brick skins are cut the normal BrickIT! way, one per wall. Close the Building window with × (your settings are kept in the project), then for each of the four layers:

Click the layer in the Layers list to make it active.
Click Export SVG or Export DXF.

To do all four in one go, show every layer (click any ○ so it becomes an eye), then hover over Export DXF ▾ and choose All Panels (Separate Files). That export only includes layers that are showing.

Brick skins1 mm board · 4 files

Carcass sheet2 mm board · 1 file here

WindowsGlazeIT! · 8 openings

InstructionsSave as a page or print

Save the project too (File › Save). The walls and the Building settings go into the same project file.

8Follow "How to build it"

Back in the Building window, the How to build it tab has numbered steps, each with a drawing made for this building, its wall names and its counts. Use Next → to step through, or Save as a page / Print to take them to the bench. For our house there are nine.

Before assembly: make four finished walls

Step 2, laminate each wall — **2 · Laminate each wall.** Glue each core to the back of its skin, engraved face outwards, flush top and bottom, reveals lined up 1 mm all round. At a 90° corner the core stops 1 mm short of the skin's end. Press flat until dry.

Step 3, mitre the ends: plan of the corner showing the sand-to line — **3 · Mitre the ends.** Sand a 45° bevel through skin and core together, from the edge of the brick face down to the engraved "sand to" line. The bond then runs unbroken round the corner.

1 · Check the parts lists what you should have. 4 · Glaze from behind: fit the GlazeIT! windows into the reveals now, while the walls are still flat.

Assembly: the box goes together face-down

Step 5, the front lying face down with the three plates standing in its slots — **5 · Lay the Front on its face; add the plates.** Base, Floor 1 and Roof plate go into its slots, arrows towards it, plus the 4 corner keys at its two ends.

Step 6, lowering the right side onto the plate tabs — **6 · Lower the Right side onto its tabs**, mitre against the front's. Glue, then fit the 2 keys for its corner with the back.

Step 7, lowering the back onto its tabs — **7 · Lower the Back onto its tabs**, then its 2 keys for the corner with the left side.

Step 8, closing the box with the left side — **8 · Close it with the Left side** on every remaining tab. Check it is square (the plates set it) and weight it until dry.

9 · Stand it up. Every wall is jointed at its corners with a plate at every floor, so the shell is stiff on its own. Fill and touch in the joints, then paint.

Other shapes

The rectangle is only the start. The same rows describe any footprint made of straight walls:

Shape › set the corners for… fills the rows for a Rectangle (4 walls), an L-shape (6) or a Splayed front corner (5), keeping your layers where their names fit.
Corner types in the then menu: outside, 90° is an ordinary corner; inside, 90° (an L) is 270°, the inner corner of an L, which is butted and glued with a square strip because it cannot be mitred; splayed, 135° for a cut-off corner; straight on (180°) for two walls in line; other angle… for anything else.
+ Add a wall adds a row to the end; move it with the arrows.
Kit buildings: tick the pieces in the 📚 Library and choose Open as one project. Each piece becomes a layer, ready for the Building window.

If it goes wrong

What you see	What it means and what to do
The wrong layer in a row	Pick the right one from that row's drop-down, or use ↑ ↓. Renaming layers by the name rules in stage 1 helps the guess next time.
A red message under the rows about lengths or closing the footprint	More than two walls are plain, or the corners you set cannot close. Draw another wall as a layer or type a length, then check the corner angles add up for your shape.
A red box above the parts	The carcass cannot be built as set, and the message says why: the corners do not turn 360° in all, the walls do not meet up, a wall is too short for its corners, two floors are too close, or a wall has an outline the core cannot follow (a taper, or a gable other than a simple triangle).
An amber note "shorter than the walls round it"	Usually a party wall seen only above its neighbour's roof. Use it as the top of a … wall makes a full-height layer with plain brick below and a line engraved where the neighbour's roof meets it.
Notes in an amber strip	Information, not errors: open it to read, for example, where a floor was moved a few mm to clear a window.
Layers made by BrickIT! seem to be missing	They are hidden (○ in the Layers list). Click the circle.