At the upper-right corner of the canvas, you’ll find the workspace fill tools. These controls let you set up your material and choose how the canvas background is displayed.
The toolbar includes four icons:
- Select Material: Opens the Material Library
- Blank: Shows a clean grid background
- Material Simulation: Applies a texture preview based on the material you selected
- Live View: Captures a real-time camera image from your machine as the workspace background
¶ 1. Select Material
Click the first icon to open a pop-up window where you can choose the material type and thickness. This function matches the Material settings found in the right-side panel of the interface and determines the material and thickness for the current job.
Selecting the correct material helps the system automatically apply the appropriate default laser power, speed, and cutting depth.
¶ 2. Canvas Fill Options
To the right of the Material icon, you’ll find three background display options. These modes control how the canvas appears and help you preview your project more intuitively.
¶ 2.1 Blank Canvas
Displays the default blank canvas view, suitable for early design work or when material preview is unnecessary.
¶ 2.2 Material Simulation
Based on the material you selected, the software automatically loads a matching texture and applies it to the canvas background, giving you a visual preview of the final engraving or cutting result.
When Material Simulation mode is active:
- All objects are visually simulated using the current job parameters and material properties.
- If no standard material type is selected, this feature will be disabled.
Material simulation offers a near-realistic preview, but cannot reproduce results with 100% accuracy. Laser engraving involves multiple nonlinear factors such as laser variation and material absorption properties. Aliencell Space aims for “realistic simulation,” not “physical duplication.”
We recommend treating the preview as your best starting point—an essential step toward achieving professional-quality results.
¶ 2.3 Live View
Click the 
icon to activate the device’s photo capture feature. This uses the machine’s built-in camera to capture an image of the work area and display it as the canvas background, allowing you to align your design directly to the material inside the machine.
- Refresh Image: If you move the material or simply want an updated image, click the icon again to capture a new photo of the work area.
In projects with multiple workspaces, this button can switch to Global Refresh, updating Live View for all canvases that are using this mode.
Make sure your device is connected and in Idle state before using this feature.