How CutClean works

Getting started

CutClean runs in your browser. There's nothing to install, and you don't need an account to start cleaning files.

1. 1

   Open the workspace

   Hit “Clean a file free” to open the app. It loads the repair engine locally, in your browser.

2. 2

   Drop a file

   Drag in a DXF, SVG, PDF, AI or EPS. It's read and analyzed on your own machine. Nothing is uploaded.

3. 3

   Read the health report

   Every fault is scored and located, from open contours and faceted arcs to duplicates and scale issues.

4. 4

   Fix and download

   One click refits arcs, closes contours and dedupes; pick an export preset and download a cut-ready file.

Free includes unlimited health reports and three full-quality repairs a day. Pro lifts the cap, and pay-as-you-go credits are there if you'd rather not subscribe.

Repair a file

Repair is the core of CutClean. After you drop a file, the health report lists each fault with a short code:

ARC_REFIT

A curve exported as many short lines. CutClean fits a true arc or circle back onto it.

CONTOUR_CLOSE

A tiny gap between path end-points. Welded shut so the shape cuts as one closed loop.

DEDUPE

A duplicate line stacked on another. Removed so the edge is cut once, not twice.

SCALE

The drawing's real-world size is ambiguous. Use Calibrate to set it exactly.

To calibrate scale, open Calibrate, click two points you know the real distance between, and type that distance. The whole drawing snaps to true millimeters. Every repair is verified to round-trip before the download unlocks.

Two editing tools go beyond automatic repair: Weld / union merges overlapping pieces into one clean outline (arcs stay true arcs), and the node editor lets you drag corners and arc curvature directly on the drawing — add or delete nodes, undo, then Apply to rebuild the file arc-correct.

Convert between formats

Use Convert to change a file's format without degrading geometry. The same arc-refit quality applies on the way through.

• DXF ↔ SVG is free and keeps arcs as arcs, no tessellation into line soup.
• Pro adds PDF, AI and EPS, in and out.
• Splines are converted to clean arc / biarc paths that cutters handle smoothly.

Pick your input, choose the output format, and download.

Generate parts

The Generators build parametric parts from a form, no drawing required. Fill in the parameters, preview the result on the canvas, and download.

• Boxes & finger-joints, sized to your stock thickness.
• Gridfinity bins & baseplates — a flat-pack, Gridfinity-compatible footprint you cut and stack (a layered baseplate or a finger-joint bin with an optional stacking lip, dividers and finger scoop). It's a compatible footprint, not a printed 3D profile.
• Gears, by tooth count and module.
• Text & stencils, arrays, inlays and hatch fills.
• Living hinges — fill a shape with a flex-cut slit lattice sized from your material thickness and target bend radius; the box generator's living-hinge option makes its bottom panel flexible the same way.
• Brackets (L / U / Z) — flat patterns developed with your material's K-factor and bend radius; the blank carries dashed bend lines at their true flat positions. A 90° L-bracket is free to download.
• Material test cards — a labeled power × speed matrix (plus an optional focus ramp) you cut once to dial in a new material, then record the winning cell straight into a saved profile.

Basic shapes are free to try; the full generator library is part of Pro.

Prep a file for the machine

Between a clean file and a confident cut sits the prep pipeline — every tool here works on the file you already loaded:

• Kerf-offset preview — see the real cut path with the beam width compensated, inside or out.
• DFM preflight — a “will it cut?” check that flags features too small, too thin, or too close together for your process.
• Auto-tabs & lead-in/out — holding tabs so parts don't shift mid-cut, and pierce leads placed off the part edge.
• Operations & layers — separate cut, engrave and score onto their own machine-assignable layers.
• Dogbone / T-bone corner relief — round-tool over-cuts spliced into inside corners so mating parts seat.
• Bend tools — the bend-deduction calculator, bend-line annotation with fold metadata, and the L/U/Z bracket wizard.
• Auto-nesting — pack parts onto stock sheets with arcs preserved; common-line cutting merges shared edges (Shop).
• G-code export — post the prepped file to ready-to-run GRBL 1.1 laser G-code, every arc a native G2/G3. Always verify travel and run a low-power dry pass first.

Preview is free on these tools; downloads are Pro (nesting and common-line cutting scale up with Shop).

Engrave a photo

Drop a photo (PNG or JPEG) into the Photo → engraving tool, set the real-world width and resolution, and adjust brightness, contrast and gamma. Pick a mode for how it engraves:

• Bitmap modes (grayscale, Floyd–Steinberg or ordered dither) output an engraving-ready PNG sized to real millimeters.
• Halftone lays a rotated dot screen where every dot is a true circle — real geometry your machine follows, not a polygonized blob.
• Newsprint lays a rotated line screen whose line coverage tracks the tone, output as DXF or SVG.

The preview is free and full-quality; the download is a Pro feature. If a screen is too fine for the photo, increase the pitch. Nothing is ever watermarked.

Save & sell your work

Pro and Shop add the tools to keep, version and sell your designs.

• Project vault, to save a file to your cloud library and re-open it from any machine.
• Version history, to diff and restore any past version.
• Branded mockups + listing kit, to generate preview images and listing copy.
• Format bundle, to turn one cleaned file into a seller-ready zip: a Cricut-safe SVG, a CAM DXF, a PDF proof, EPS art and a transparent PNG preview, with a README. Open it from the listing kit's “Also sell the files” link.
• Licensing, to add a license, watermark and per-buyer fingerprint to protect a design.
• Send-to-bureau, to hand a cut-ready file to a cutting service in one click.

The bundle's SVG is sized at 96 px per inch for Cricut Design Space; verify the size after uploading. The bundle is a Pro feature; the preview and contents list are free.

Run a shop

The Shop tools are for running a cutting business at volume.

• Quoting / job-costing, where cut length + pierces + material become a quote PDF.
• Auto-nesting, to pack parts onto sheets to save material, with true arcs preserved.
• Common-line cutting, to share edges between parts to cut less.
• Material inventory, team seats and an analytics dashboard.
• API access + webhooks drive CutClean from your own pipeline — the full reference is in the Developer API section below; batch processing (Pro) runs many files at once.

Developer API & webhooks

Shop includes a programmatic API: drive repair from your own pipeline, poll for the result, and get a signed webhook when a job finishes. Issue an API key in the workspace (Shop → API keys — the key is shown once) and send it as a bearer token to https://api.cut-clean.com.

curl https://api.cut-clean.com/api/v1/account \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer ck_YOUR_KEY"

{ "email": "[email protected]", "tier": "shop", "seats": 5,
  "apiAccess": true, "dailyRepairLimit": null }

POST /api/v1/repair

Submit a repair. JSON body: filename, data (the file as base64, 10 MB max, DXF or SVG), optional format (inferred from the filename extension when omitted) and optional options.preset — plasma, laser or router. Returns 202 with { jobId, status: "queued" }.

GET /api/v1/jobs/:id

Poll a job. queued → completed with outputs (filename, format, a short-lived signed url and its expiresAt) plus cut metrics — or failed with a typed error. Job records are kept for about 15 minutes after completion, so fetch results promptly; another account's job id is a 404, never a leak.

GET /api/v1/account

Your entitlements: email, tier, seats, apiAccess and dailyRepairLimit. The quickest way to prove a key works.

• Limits: 60 requests a minute per account, and a generous daily job ceiling — hitting it returns a typed 429 (daily_job_limit) that resets at midnight UTC.
• Validation problems are typed 400s: invalid_filename, invalid_data, invalid_format, file_too_large, invalid_preset.
• API jobs run at Pro queue priority.

Webhooks close the loop: register an endpoint URL in the workspace (Shop → Webhooks) and copy its whsec_… signing secret — it's shown exactly once. CutClean then POSTs a job.completed or job.failed event to your endpoint whenever an API job settles. The payload names the output files but deliberately carries no download URLs (they're short-lived) — poll GET /api/v1/jobs/:id with your API key for fresh signed URLs.

POST https://your-endpoint.example.com/hooks
ck-signature: sha256=8f2a…c41e

{ "type": "job.completed", "jobId": "j_123", "status": "completed",
  "submittedAt": 1767225600000, "completedAt": 1767225604000,
  "outputs": [{ "filename": "bracket.dxf", "format": "dxf" }] }

import { createHmac, timingSafeEqual } from "node:crypto";

function verifyWebhook(secret, rawBody, signatureHeader) {
  const expected =
    "sha256=" + createHmac("sha256", secret).update(rawBody, "utf8").digest("hex");
  const a = Buffer.from(expected, "utf8");
  const b = Buffer.from(signatureHeader, "utf8");
  return a.length === b.length && timingSafeEqual(a, b);
}

The signature is an HMAC-SHA256 of the exact raw request body — verify before you parse, compare with a timing-safe equality, and keep the whsec_… secret server-side. If you revoke an endpoint it stops firing immediately; register a new one to rotate its secret.

FAQ