PC · Mac · iPad · Android
Modelling, layout, joinery, assembly, checking and fabrication, brought into one workspace and one model.
Latistic is actively being developed, full time, by one person.
Why this exists
I've been modelling, making and experimenting with different software for more than 25 years. Over that time I've used plenty of great tools, but I was always left with the same problem: nothing really worked the way I wanted to work as a maker.
Software was often built around engineering workflows, with separate tools for different machines and different stages of the process. But as a maker, I wanted to design something once and take that same design all the way through — whether I was using a CNC, a laser cutter or a 3D printer.
I couldn't find a tool that brought that workflow together in one place. So I decided to build one.
How it works
Latistic brings different parts of the making process into the same workspace, with one model running through them all. They aren't fixed steps — you can move between them as your project develops.
Create and shape your design using the modelling tools.
Active developmentBring parts together, position them and see how they fit.
Active developmentCheck dimensions, clearances and how things work together before making them.
Early developmentAdd materials, colours, lighting and presentation to see your design as a finished object.
Active developmentPrepare the design for the machine — including flattening, nesting and export.
In developmentAt the centre of it all is the same model. Parts can carry their own information — including connections, joints and materials — so you can move between different parts of the workflow without having to start the design again.
Latistic is being developed in the open. The Founder's Licence gives early access while these tools continue to be built, tested and refined.
What it does
Each workspace is designed around a different part of the making process, with everything working together on the same model. Click any image to see it full size.
A growing set of tools for creating and modifying 3D models, from simple sketches and solid forms through to more complex shapes and constructions.
A virtual tape measure and try-square layout on the face of the board, just like you would mark it out by hand.
Add tick marks, square lines, projected lines, sliding bevels and compass circles. Divide a length by count or spacing, mirror marks, and project them through to the back face.
Place a cut on the board — circle, rectangle, or a custom cookie-cutter from an imported SVG. Adjust it in place, then commit when it's right.
Stamp one shape onto every mark of a single colour at once, so forty holes take one action.
Generate traditional joints directly on the model, sized from the geometry rather than drawn by hand.
Cut a joint on one board, tap the second, and it's cut to match with a fit allowance in millimetres that you set. Both halves come from the same geometry, so they're made to suit each other.
Start with a form or model, then turn it into a rib-cage structure. Choose the number and thickness of the ribs, generate the connecting fins, and create the interlocking slots automatically.
The joints are calculated from the geometry of the model, including the angle at which parts meet. This allows slot sizes to adapt to the shape and orientation of each joint.
Choose from three fin profiles — straight, curved, or following the shape of the original model. The profiles share the same connection points, so you can change the style without having to rebuild the joints.
Pick a part up and put it down. It follows the pointer, the target face highlights, and a preview shows where it will land before you commit.
Loose parts settle onto whatever supports them, and a paint tool lets you colour individual copies.
Parts carry their own connection points, so they find their position by matching up with the parts around them. That allows staggered and partial arrangements as well as straightforward ones.
Once it's built, you can generate a printable assembly manual from it.
57 pattern generators, including Voronoi, Penrose tilings, Truchet, Islamic tiling, mandalas, reaction-diffusion, differential growth, L-systems, Mandelbrot, phyllotaxis, guilloche, mazes, halftones and living-hinge kerf lattices.
Layer them into coloured stacks for layered light pieces, fill letterforms with them, or cut them into a solid.
Patterns are checked against the material they're being cut from. Line widths can be graduated per layer and adjusted for kerf, and the workspace tells you whether a pattern is too fine to survive cutting or ready to go. Patterns export as millimetre-accurate SVG.
28 material presets, six of them emissive — an emissive material casts light onto the parts around it as well as glowing itself.
Render mode adds soft shadows, a studio backdrop or starfield, bloom and filmic tone mapping, and captures at up to four times resolution with an optional transparent background — so you can see a design as a finished object before any material is cut.
A set of checks that look at how a design will behave when it's actually made, reading the records the cut tools produce rather than inspecting the finished geometry.
Where it can, it suggests a change, shows the result as a preview, and checks that too. Where a change to the design itself is needed, it says so rather than adjusting the cut.
This is an early part of the app and there's more to come — the checks currently focus on rib-cage work, and interference and sag are on the roadmap.
Start to finish
Dovetails cut to match each other, stood up, closed, dressed in walnut and saved back to the parts library — all on the same model.
Roadmap
Latistic is being developed in stages, with each part tested and refined as development progresses. The roadmap will evolve as the work develops, so there are no fixed release dates.
The Founder's Licence gives you access while Latistic is being developed, with new capabilities added as they become ready.
Pricing
No subscription. Buy it once and keep the licence.
A perpetual licence for Windows and Mac, including all Version 1 updates, plus direct access to me while Latistic is being developed.
The iPad version is included when it's released.
For people who want to get involved early, use the software as it develops and help shape what comes next.
A perpetual licence for Windows, Mac and iPad, with 12 months of updates included. After that you can continue using the version you have, or choose to keep receiving updates for £39 per year.
Latistic is being built for iPad as well as desktop. Founder's Licence holders will be included.
Standalone iPad pricing will be announced closer to release.
A free version with basic modelling and core tools. More details will be announced closer to launch.
The Founder's Licence will become available once the software is ready for early users. Leave your email below and I'll let you know.
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The licence
Export your work in standard formats and keep full-resolution files without watermarks.
A perpetual licence means you can continue using the version you've purchased, without a subscription or expiry date.
Use Latistic for personal projects, commercial work, or anything in between.
If Latistic isn't right for you, you can request a refund within 30 days.
The licence you purchase is yours under the terms that applied when you bought it.
The short version
I started building Latistic because I was making lampshades from stacked ribs. Getting one design right could take dozens of iterations — cut it, test it, adjust it, and cut it again. Then I'd want to change the design and start the process all over again.
I wanted a different way to work. I wanted to change a dimension, generate the new version, and understand how the parts would fit together before cutting the material.
That led me to build the rib-cage tools to solve my own problem. But as I developed them, I realised the same approach could be useful for much more than one type of project — bringing modelling, marking out, joinery, assembly, checking and fabrication into the same workflow.
That's what Latistic has grown into: a tool I'm building around the way makers actually work. I'm working on it full time, and it's still evolving.
Questions
Latistic uses the OpenCASCADE kernel as part of its modelling foundation, but the software around it is designed specifically around a maker's workflow.
The focus is on designing, laying out, joining, assembling and preparing things to be made — whether that's in wood, sheet material or other materials. The aim is to keep those parts of the process connected rather than treating them as separate jobs.
There are plenty of capable CAD tools, and different tools suit different people. Latistic is being built for a particular way of working: designing something, figuring out how it will go together, checking it, and then making it.
That's the workflow I'm interested in, and it's the reason Latistic exists.
No. The plan is a perpetual licence: buy it once and keep using the version you've purchased. Updates are included for a defined period, with optional updates afterwards.
Latistic is designed to work alongside the machines you already have. It creates the files and geometry needed for the next stage of your workflow, while your existing machine software handles the final machine-specific process.
SVG export is already part of the development. Flattening, nesting, DXF and STL are planned for the first major release, with CNC toolpaths planned for a later stage.
Quite a lot.
Latistic is still under development and I'm not pretending otherwise. The core workflows are working and I'm using them to build real projects, but every part still needs more testing, refinement and development.
The Founder's Licence will only go on sale when I'm confident it's ready for early users. Until then, the focus is on building it, finding the problems and fixing them.
The modelling system is tested automatically as well as through normal development and real projects. Automated tests generate chains of modelling operations and record anything that fails, so it can be reproduced, investigated and fixed.
Latistic is being built by one person, full time, in Mallorca.
That means development is personal. I'm using the software myself, fixing the problems I find, and listening directly to the people who use it.
The Founder's Licence will open when Latistic is ready for early users. Leave your email and you'll be the first to know.