Opening Shapes

The casual viewer considers a curved top shape as just another shape – nothing particularly ornamental. They have been woven into all the decorative arts for centuries. Picture framers have ignored curved top opening shapes in matting largely because they were monumentally difficult to cut. The Wizard makes them possible.

These collections focus on curved or serpentine top shapes, some with multiple curves or are tapered to form more artistic reveals. Some designs start with templates that form their tops with multiple curves. Other openings may be finished by adding a serpentine curved opening merged at the bottom. Variations are easy by adjusting their parameters.

No matter how driven you are to discover new opening shapes to use, it takes time to search, experiment, and test. In these collections, all the searching and testing has been done.

These mat design files are ready to use.

Most often, the parameter values are very small. Remember that you can hold the Alt key on the keyboard as you click the plus and minus buttons beside the Parameter fields. This will change the values only 0.01 inch per click (0.2mm in metric) instead of the usual sixteenth inch per click (1mm in metric).

When values are small, a few hundredths of an inch can be a big change.

These designs are meant to be used as the beginnings for projects.

Open a design and enter the Opening size to suit the current project.

Change the Border widths and the Outside size to suit the current project, and the design is ready to cut.