Overview of the Interface

Product Interface

The Main Menu Bar (the Drop Down Menus) along the top of the screen (File, Edit, Model, Toolpaths, View, Gadgets, Help) provides access to most of the commands available in the software, grouped by function. Click on any of the choices to show a Drop-Down list of the available commands.
The Design Panel is on the left side of the screen. This is where the Drawing , Modeling, Clipart and Layers tab can be accessed and the icons within the tabs to create a design.
On the Drawing tab you will find the tools for creating, editing, sizing and alignment of vectors. On the modeling tab are all the tools that relate to the management and manipulation of 3D components, as well as the Component Tree, which shows you the 3D components and allows you to define how they are combined to form the final composite 3D model. The 3D Clipart allows simple graphical access to any 3D models that are installed on your computer and the Layers tab allows easy management of layers in the job.
The Toolpath Tab is on the right side of the screen. The Top section of the toolpaths tab houses all of the icons to create, edit and preview toolpaths. The bottom half shows you toolpaths that you have already created.
The 2D Design window is where the design is drawn, edited and selected ready for machining. Designs can be imported or created directly in Aspire. This occupies the same area as the 3D View and the display can be toggled between the two using F2 and F3 or the tabs at the top of the window.
The 3D View is where the composite model, toolpaths and the toolpath preview are displayed.
If you wish to see the 2D and 3D views simultaneously, or you wish to switch your focus to the Toolpaths tab at a later stage of your design process, you can use the interface layout buttons (accessible in the 2D View Control section on the Drawing Tab) to toggle between the different preset interface layouts.

Managing the Interface

The Drawing , modeling, clipart, Layers and Toolpath tool pages have Auto-Hide / Show behavior which allows them to automatically close when not being used, thus maximizing your working screen area.

Aspire includes two default layouts, one for designing and one for machining, which can automatically and conveniently set the appropriate auto-hide behavior for each of the tools pages. Toggle layout buttons on each of the tools pages allow you to switch the interface as your focus naturally shifts from the design stage to the toolpathing stage of your project.

Accessing Auto-hidden tabs

If a tools page is auto-hidden (because it is currently unpinned, see pinning and unpinning tools pages, below), then it will only appear as a tab at the side of your screen. Move your mouse over these tabs to show the page temporarily. Once you have selected a tool from the page, it will automatically hide itself again.

Note: If you find that you are using the tools on an auto-hidden tab frequently, you may wish to use Aspire's preset layout buttons to toggle the interface to a more appropriate default. Alternatively you can pin the hidden tab out to prevent it from auto-hiding (see below).

Pinning and unpinning tools pages

The auto-hide behavior of each tools page can be controlled using the push-pin icons at the top right of the title area of each page.

			Pinned Open (auto-hide disabled)
			Un-pinned (auto-hide enabled)

Default layout for Design and Toolpaths

Aspire has two default tool page layouts that are designed to assist the usual workflow of design, followed by toolpath creation.

In all three of the tools tabs there are 'Switch Layout' buttons. In the Drawing and Modeling tabs, these buttons will shift the interface's focus to toolpath tasks by 'pinning-out' the Toolpaths tools tab, and 'unpinning' the Drawing and Modeling tools tabs. In the toolpaths tab, the button reverses the layout - unpinning the toolpaths page, and pinning-out the Drawing and Modeling pages.

You can toggle between these two modes using the F11 and F12 shortcut keys.