Workspace and origin
Match the workspace dimensions and orientation to your machine, then verify placement with a frame.
The bed dimensions in your machine profile decide what fits. The workspace Origin setting determines the coordinate orientation used to map the design to the bed. Both must match your machine setup.
What you need
- The machine connected.
- A tape measure or calipers if you want to verify dimensions.
Steps
1. Confirm bed dimensions
- Open Device Settings → Machine.
- Note Bed Width and Bed Height.
Their unit labels and the values you enter follow the current Display Unit preference (millimeters or inches). Machine profiles store the dimensions internally in millimeters.
These dimensions should match your machine's usable work area, not its physical frame. For most machines the work area is slightly smaller than the frame (because of belts, end stops, head profile).
2. Confirm workspace origin direction
- Same Machine tab. Look at Origin: Bottom Left or Top Left.
With Bottom Left, displayed Y increases upward; with Top Left, it increases downward. Use the convention expected by your controller and its work-coordinate setup.
Homing establishes the controller's position reference. The home-switch corner alone does not tell you which workspace Origin to choose, because controller work offsets and coordinate conventions also matter. Changing the profile Origin does not home the machine or clear those offsets.
3. Save the profile
Click Save. The setting persists for the active profile.
4. Test with a frame
- Place a piece of scrap material on the bed where you expect it to be.
- Draw a rectangle on the canvas the size of the scrap.
- In Laser Control, set Start From: Absolute Coords.
- Click Frame.
The head should trace the expected rectangle on the material. If it lands elsewhere, stop and check the dimensions and origin direction, Start From, and the controller's position state and work offsets before trying again.
Job origin vs workspace origin
Workspace Origin is a machine-profile setting. Start From selects the project's placement mode. For Current Position or User Origin, the Job Origin grid chooses which point on the job's bounds lands at the current head position or saved User Origin. This anchor does not prescribe the first cutting point.
The selection reference grid in Properties controls editing coordinates and is independent of all these placement settings.
See Job origin vs workspace origin for the deep dive.
If artwork is outside the workspace
Preview, framing, or job preparation stops when any output geometry extends beyond the configured workspace. In v0.1.11 and later, the message:
- Names and selects the offending object when Beam Bench can identify it.
- Names the left, right, top, or bottom edge involved.
- Reports the largest overrun on that edge in your selected display unit.
If a project is using Current Position or User Origin and the artwork already fits the canvas, Beam Bench can offer to switch that project to Absolute Coordinates and automatically recheck the preview. This fixes an origin-mode mismatch without changing the artwork or the machine profile.
Move or resize the selected object until all of its output geometry is inside the workspace, then try again. Check strokes, raster overscan, offsets, and rotated geometry if the visible object appears close to the edge.
Do not increase the profile's bed dimensions merely to silence the error. The dimensions must continue to match the machine's real usable travel.
Verify it worked
- Framing walks the head around the design's bounds, on the material, not off the bed.
- The Move panel's jog directions move the head the way you expect, and framing lands on the material in Absolute Coords mode.
- A test cut lands where the canvas said it would.