Node Patrol

 

(And no, available information on the subject did not help me.)

Yep, them pesky little buggers that make your "select all" size larger than the image itself. You do not see anything there, but when you try to engrave or cut, you get the equivalent to the Microsoft blue screen of death, that "Cut might be out of bounds - continue anyway?". Yet, you do not see anything outside the image which is in the work area on your screen.

Case in point, I was working on a four layer 1/8" Baltic Birch plywood project, and the top layer I needed to paint two different colors. This would be a repeat project for me, so I needed to paint quick and not spend time with a brush. Spray can it is.

You cannot control paint out of a spray can very well. Some options are, hold up a piece of cardboard to block what you do not want painted, mask it off, or create a reusable mask. I chose the reusable mask approach. This was my mask shape.

I made this large for a reason. Do you see any stray graphics, dots? I don't. Yet when I ran this cut the laser was locating in places outside the image, moving around like it had ants in it's pants (laser housing). I took note to research later.

I used the mask successfully, for the most part. I had to give myself a bigger "process window" and move some of the boundaries out to better protect from overspray. In doing so, I saved my last LightBurn file onto the cloud making it R1 (I start my revisions with R0 for the original file), and I noticed stray dots on the thumb drive file Icon that I was saving From. I have my computer screen file open set for Extra Large Icons, so I do see the image on the files on the thumb drive (yet weird I lost that image in the cloud, perhaps someone can give me hint as to why?).

I zoomed in on the area with the dots in LightBurn, zoomed n again, went super crazy and zoomed in so close I could engrave on a Nat's ass, yet I did not see the dots. I run two screens and both were clean.

I used the LightBurn select tool and dragged across the area I saw in the thumb drive icon image. I found them! . . . and deleted them. I strategically did this so as not to grab anything from my mask. I did a select all to see the boundary around my image, and the boundary still showed too far right, and left. I eventually found them all using the select tool. Below is a screenshot of the file icon image I saw from my thumb drive. See the stray dots now?

Now why these dots do not show in LightBurn I do not know. I can no longer see an image on my cloud files for whatever reason. So how is one suppose to find these before engraving or cutting? Below is the "Select All" boundary indicating there is something out there, I just cannot see it.

The image below is the screen enlargement near the top right where most of the dots are. You can enlarge all day, and not visually find them.

Another case in point, I have read on the laser community threads that people will get the notice from LightBurn that "Cut might be out of bounds - continue anyway?", when they do not see anything outside the boundary. One thing I now know is, do "Select All" and take a look at the boundary the selection takes, compared to your actual image. If it is larger in any direction, you have stray dots (nodes) too.

What caused this?

Well, I had to heavy edit the top layer image to get to my mask image. In doing so I had to set breakpoints for nodes so that I could cut what I did not want. Those dots, they are stray nodes connected to nowhere, so they are not visible when you super enlarge and try to take a look to find (or use any of the recommended ways on the Internet to find and delete them). Yet for whatever reason my thumb drive icon for my file did show the dots / nodes. My recollection now is that when I have had problems with files from others, they somehow ended up in the same situation and just left it not knowing how to correct. Stray nodes that places the image size outside the work area, even though your actual image is within the work area. 

"Select All" has not become my best friend. Not that I never used Select All, just that it now gives a new meaning to "opportunity" to find my errors, and errors of others, that stop me from running the laser with "Cut might be out of bounds - continue anyway?".

UPDATE

7/4/2026

I posted my problem and finding on three laser FB pages, and was given a tip from Brandon that I should have thought of, but am happy he reminded me. I went to the "Preview" in LightBurn. I did not see the nodes (dots) at first. When I played the file at x1 speed, I saw the laser movement speed up in the "white space", but suddenly slow down and speed up again as it recognized the node. It made a dot on the screen that was very very small to see. I finished playing and saw all of the stray nodes. I went back to my other screen to respond to the person saying it worked and thanks, just to loose sight where all those nodes were when I looked back onto the LightBurn screen. That is how small the dots are. Still, in the normal mode, you still cannot see them even when super zoomed in.

I would like to figure out why a file Icon on my thumb drive I can easily see the nodes, and when zoomed in with LightBurn. One theory from Brandon, which I agree with, is that for developers of vector graphic software to visualize on the screen, and computer performance. More graphics, poor performance, and visa versa. LightBurn may have made a decision on that balance, and is why I do not see the nodes (dots). The main screen does not show the full rendering, and Preview does. Perhaps LightBurn should give us a toggle to switch between full rendering and partial, so that we can find these outliers.

Still, using "Preview" and running it slow, understanding the movement will go faster in white space then stop and start quickly at the node, I will know the general area it is at so you can drag a selection box and delete. In all, so far I found it easier, quicker, to look at the file Icon on my thumb drive to see where the nodes are.

7/5/2026

There are some excellent people out there offering their help to solve this. So far their suggestions are not working. However, because I am now acute to where the dots are on my version R0, when I fit the image to the screen I do seem tiny tiny dots. As I zoom in, the dots actually disappear. One that I thought was a dot at the 2/3rds down from the top and near middle, is actually a very short line. It did not disappear.  

One thing that still helps, is Ctrl-A for Select All, and looking at the selection boundary. My boundary to the right is maybe 40mm out, so it is simple for me to drag the selection tool for everything right of my work, and capture all of those and delete. It is not a difficult task to hunt these down. I just wished I could see them when I zoom in so that I do not have to rely on the Preview image or my file icon on my thumb drive to get an idea where they are.

7/6/2026

LightBurn Software Support has been excellent in understanding my problem and explaining what to do. This is their first response of the day:

 When LightBurn gives the out-of-bounds warning, it usually means there is still some object geometry outside the valid work area. That can be a tiny vector shape, a very short open path, or a small leftover piece from node editing. These can be difficult to see if they are extremely small.

 
A few ways to track it down:

1. Press Ctrl+A / Cmd+A to select everything, then look at the full selection boundary. If the boundary extends away from the visible artwork, that shows the general direction of the stray geometry.
2. Zoom out until you can see the whole selection boundary, then drag-select around the empty area where the boundary extends. If anything becomes selected, delete it.
3. Use Preview and play the job slowly. If the preview shows movement into an apparently empty area, that helps identify where the stray object is located.
4. Try Edit → Select Open Shapes. If the stray object is an open path, this may select it.
5. Try Edit → Delete Duplicates as a cleanup step, although duplicated geometry is not always the cause of this warning.
6. If you are using layers, temporarily turn layers off/on one at a time. That can help narrow down which layer contains the problem object.

If you still have the original file before cleanup, please attach the .lbrn2 project file. That will let us check whether this is simply tiny stray geometry, or whether LightBurn is failing to make the offending object visible enough to locate easily.

I sent them my file, and they responded with more suggestions, which I appreciated a lot. Here is the second response of the day:

Thanks for sending the file.

Your post explains that this was made by heavily editing a traced/vectorised image, and the file reflects that. Once ungrouped, LightBurn sees over 40 separate objects, with small fragments, gaps, doubled-back ends, and open path sections around the main shape.

That is likely why the tiny marks were so difficult to locate — they are not a separate mysterious object type, just small leftover pieces from the trace/editing process. For this kind of cleanup, I’d suggest working in this order:

1. Ungroup the artwork so the individual pieces can be selected.
2. Focus first on the outline you actually want to keep.
3. Use node editing and Edit → Auto-join Selected Shapes where path ends should meet.
4. Once the intended outline is clean enough, the Offset tool with a 0 offset can sometimes help create a cleaner working outline.
5. After that, use drag-selection around the surrounding “empty” areas to catch and delete the remaining tiny trace fragments.

If this is going to be reused as a mask, it will be much easier to manage as one clean closed vector than as many edited trace fragments.

Conclusion

I purchased the design through an Etsy vendor. I do not think it was an original design, rather it was traced from other art found on the Internet and compiled to make the product (4-layer plywood clock). The vendor, or someone further upstream, did clean up their outer "strays" (tiny marks), but did nothing or it was not necessary to  clean the inner strays. When I broke the nodes to delete what I did not need for the paint mask, I unknowingly unveiled their inner strays left behind. Note that when I broke nodes, I also reconnected them to my new path. I did see a lot of broken lines on the main path (their trace), but never noticed what was outside because for whatever reason when I zoomed in they disappeared. Frame Selection (Window > Frame Selection, or Ctrl+Shift+A) is your best way to tray and spot the strays. Zooming in, not so much.

I have seen on the Forums some people getting frustrated with this thinking it is a LightBurn issue. Believe me, it is not. It is a designer issue, not software, and one that can be corrected. I hope the above helps you get to where you are going.

Thank you to everyone who participated in this journey! I will see you again some time!

Resources

ACMER Laser User Group - Facebook

ACMER Official Group - Facebook

Glossary - Blog Post

LightBurn Community - Facebook

LightBurn Software - Contact Page

Wes' Laser Engraving Journey - Safety First!

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