BrickIT! User Guide
Chapters
  1. Welcome and the workspace
  2. Your first wall
  3. Layers, reveals and front layers
  4. Windows and doors
  5. Cutting it out
  6. The Building and Plan windows
  7. 3D, roofs and pictures
  8. Raking courses and shaped gables
  9. Stone walls and resin printing
  10. Projects and the library

BrickIT! 1.9 · user guide

Design laser-cut buildings, brick by brick

BrickIT! draws the walls of a model building - every brick, arch and stone dressing - ready to cut on a laser, then builds the carcass behind them, the roof over them and a 3D picture of the finished model.

Brick and stoneSVG and DXF for the laserPrint 1:1Resin print (STL)3D view
Buttercrambe church in BrickIT!'s 3D window in golden evening light: a stone nave and chancel with slate roofs, stone copings and crosses, a bellcote, buttresses and a gabled porch with an arched door.
Buttercrambe church, one of the examples that comes with BrickIT!, in the 3D window's Golden hour scene. Every wall, roof part and buttress is cut from the drawings BrickIT! makes.

What BrickIT! does

You describe each wall of your building - its size, its bond, where the windows and doors go, the arches over them, the string courses, quoins and cills - and BrickIT! draws it brick by brick. The drawing is what your laser cuts: black lines are cut right through the board, red lines are engraved into its face as mortar joints.

  • Any scale, from 1:12 down to Z gauge, with brick sizes in millimetres at that scale.
  • Brick bonds and stone: stretcher, English, Flemish, garden wall bonds and more; ashlar, rubble and random ashlar; plain render.
  • Windows and doors with real arches, cills, lintels, mullions, tracery, glazing bars and stained glass.
  • Relief: window reveals, stone dressings and front layers cut from a second board to stand proud.
  • The whole building: a carcass of cores, floors and corner keys behind the brick skins, internal walls, lit rooms, roofs, chimneys, porches and buttresses, with cut sheets and a step-by-step assembly guide.
  • Pictures: a 3D model you can turn, light and photograph for your catalogue, with a turntable video.
  • Resin printing: any wall as an STL with its joints and dressings in relief, split to fit your printer.

The workspace

BrickIT! opens on one window with everything for the wall you are working on. Here it is with the Robertsbridge chapel example open:

The BrickIT! window with six areas numbered: 1 the title and Scale bar, 2 the Panel Generator, Nest Parts and Swatch Generator tabs, 3 the Panel Controls column, 4 the Preview, 5 the Layers column, 6 the Output/Export column.
1

Scale - your modelling scale, which sets the real size of everything you draw, and the switch between metric and imperial real-life figures.

2

Tabs - Panel Generator is where you design; Nest Parts packs many parts onto your laser's sheets; Swatch Generator makes a sheet of small sample pieces - bonds and arches side by side - to cut and compare.

3

Panel Controls - the wall you are drawing: brick size and bond, its size, gable and outline, its windows and doors.

4

Preview - the wall as it will be cut. Its toolbar opens the 📚 Library, the 🏠 Building, 🧱 3D and 📐 Plan windows, and a 🖼️ Ref reference picture to trace over.

5

Layers - every panel in the project: each wall of the building, and the reveal and front layers that give it depth.

6

Output/Export - line colours, string courses, chimney stacks and quoins, then Export SVG, Export DXF, Print 1:1, the resin print and the Detail Layer.

Tip

Each column's heading button (◀ Panel Controls, Layers ▶, Output/Export ▶) folds it away to give the preview more room. Cards inside a column open and close when you click their titles.

From a wall to a kit

  1. Draw a wall - its bricks, size, gable, windows and doors (chapter 1, chapter 3).
  2. Add depth - reveals behind the windows, front layers, stone dressings as a detail layer (chapter 2).
  3. Cut it - Export SVG or DXF for your laser software, or Print 1:1 to check it on paper (chapter 4).
  4. Make the building - add the other walls as layers and let the Building window make the carcass, floors and assembly guide (chapter 5).
  5. Roof it and see it - the roof, copings and chimneys in the 3D window, and pictures for your shop (chapter 6).

The chapters

1Your first wallScale, bricks and bond, a gable, windows, a door, quoins and a chimney.
2Layers, reveals and front layersWalls as layers, window reveals, relief glued on the face, tracing a photo.
3Windows and doorsArches, mullions, tracery, sashes, doors, hood moulds and stained glass.
4Cutting it outSVG and DXF for the laser, Print 1:1, the detail layer, nesting and swatches.
5The Building and Plan windowsCarcass, floors, internal walls, lit rooms, buttresses, porches and the plan.
63D, roofs and picturesThe 3D window, roofs in parts, copings, bargeboards, gutters and snapshots.
7Raking courses and shaped gablesDutch, Flemish and crow-stepped gables, copings, finials and volutes.
8Stone walls and resin printingAshlar and rubble, and walls printed in resin with their joints in relief.
9Projects and the librarySaving projects, the panel and opening libraries, kits and GlazeIT!.