01How to use this manual

Five minutes. Knowing how to read it saves more time than reading it.

MobiCAM is a furniture design and manufacturing program. You draw the kitchen, the wardrobe, the bathroom vanity in three dimensions; from that drawing the program works out how many of which panel to cut, how to lay them on the sheet, the file that goes to the CNC machine and the price quote you hand the customer.

The single most important idea is this: there is one drawing, and everything else is derived from it. Change a cabinet from 600 to 800 wide and the cut list, the drilling program, the sheet layout and the quoted price all change at the same moment. You never update any of them by hand — you cannot, because they are all read from that same drawing. That is why the figure on the quote, the panel that gets cut and the cabinet that gets assembled always agree.

How to read it

• First time using the program: read chapters 2, 3 and 4 in order. By the end of chapter 4 you will have a real kitchen, a real cut list and a real quote. It takes about an hour.
• Looking for where something is: use the contents on the left, or search this page with Ctrl+F (⌘+F on a Mac). The whole manual is a single page — deliberately.
• About to do a specific job: jump straight to that chapter. Each one stands on its own and points you elsewhere when it needs to.
• Want it on paper: press Ctrl+P in your browser. The page is laid out for printing; menus and links stay out of the printout.

Marks used in this manual

• Underlined bold text like Save is the name of a button or field you will see on screen. It reads exactly like that.
• Boxed text like ⌘S is a keyboard key. ⌘ is the Mac Command key; on Windows and Linux use Ctrl instead. The program itself writes these to match your operating system.
• Monospaced text like cutlist.csv is a file name, a folder path, or something the computer writes.

02Installing and first launch

Getting the program onto your computer and opening it for the first time.

Is your computer good enough?

MobiCAM runs on an ordinary office computer. What you need:

• Windows 10 or 11 (64-bit), macOS 12 or later, or a Linux of Ubuntu 22.04 / Debian 12 / Fedora 36 or later.
• 8 GB of memory is enough; 16 GB is more comfortable on large projects.
• The program takes about 20 MB of disk. Your projects are a few hundred kilobytes each — thousands of them fit in one folder.
• Internet is not required. Drawing, cut lists, nesting, G-code and quotes are all computed on your own computer. Internet is only needed for licence checks, updates and (if you want it) the AI panel.

Installing on Windows

1. Double-click the MobiCAM_0.3.0_x64-setup.exe file you were sent.
2. Windows may show a “Windows protected your PC” warning. This does not mean a virus was found: the program has no digital signature yet, so Windows is saying it does not recognise it. Click More info, then the Run anyway button that appears.
3. Click Next through the installer and finish.
4. Open MobiCAM from the Start menu.

Installing on a Mac

1. Double-click the MobiCAM_0.3.0_aarch64.dmg file.
2. In the window that opens, drag the MobiCAM icon into the Applications folder.
3. Right-click the MobiCAM disk in Finder's sidebar and choose Eject.
4. Open MobiCAM from Applications. If you get “Apple could not verify it is free of malware”: open System Settings ▸ Privacy & Security, scroll to the bottom of the page, press Open Anyway, then open the program again. You are only asked once.

Installing on Linux

One line, depending on your distribution:

• Ubuntu / Debian / Mint: sudo apt install ./MobiCAM_0.3.0_amd64.deb
• Fedora: sudo dnf install ./MobiCAM-0.3.0-1.x86_64.rpm
• Other distributions (no install): run chmod +x MobiCAM_0.3.0_amd64.AppImage and then the file. If you get an “AppImages require FUSE” error, install sudo apt install libfuse2 or run the file with the --appimage-extract-and-run flag.

First launch: the welcome screen

When the program opens you get a welcome screen with three choices:

• New Project — opens a fresh workspace. It starts with a sample Turkish kitchen loaded; delete it and draw your own, or experiment on top of it.
• Open Project… — opens a .mcam file you saved earlier.
• Customers — goes straight to the customer book (chapter 17).

Below sits the Recent Projects list; every project you save lands there and opens with one click. If you would rather not see the screen again, clear the Show this screen at launch box at the bottom; Esc also dismisses it.

Updates

MobiCAM updates itself. When a new version is out, the program shows a New version ready box at launch; choose Update and restart and it downloads, installs and restarts itself. If you have unsaved work it asks you to save first. You can also check whenever you like from Settings ▸ About ▸ Check for updates.

03A tour of the screen

The six regions you see when the program opens, and what each is for.

1 · Top bar

On the left: the program name, the name of the open project, and a small dot when there are unsaved changes. Next to it the file actions — New, Open, Save, Print — and the undo/redo arrows. In the middle, what the whole job comes to — how many cabinets, parts and boards, and what it costs. On the right: the Present button, full screen, the customer book and the panel-hiding buttons. Settings is not here: it is at the foot of the left panel (see below).

2 · Project tree (left panel)

A list of everything in the project. The project name sits at the top (click it to rename), and below it two sections:

• Assemblies — the cabinets in the project. Click the arrow in front of a cabinet to see the parts inside it (sides, bottom, top, back, shelves, doors…). The Add cabinet button is here.
• Appliances — white goods like the fridge, oven and hob, plus decor objects. The Add appliance button is here.

Clicking a row selects it: it is highlighted in the 3D view and in the plan, and the properties panel on the right shows that object's settings.

Pinned at the foot of the panel, where it does not scroll away with the list, is one row: Settings. However long the list gets it stays in the same place; ⌘, opens the same window. Chapter 19 covers it.

3 · Viewport (middle)

Where the work happens. The toolbar above it switches between two views — Plan (a top-down 2D drawing) and 3D (the three-dimensional model). The V key toggles between them. The same toolbar carries the room-element menu (Add) and the auto-design menu (Auto).

4 · Properties (right panel)

Every setting of the selected object: its dimensions, position, carcass construction, front type, fittings. With nothing selected it shows the room's own settings (floor, walls, ceiling, lighting). This panel is closed by default — so the drawing area stays large. F4 or the panel button in the top bar opens it.

5 · Output tabs (bottom panel)

The ten outputs derived from your drawing, tab by tab: Cut List, Nesting, Materials, Quote, G-code, Edge-band, Drawings, Labels, Assembly and Source JSON. Chapter 15 covers them one by one. Drag the panel's top edge to resize it; the buttons on the right maximise or collapse it.

6 · Status bar

A small dot and a line of text at the very bottom: green means everything is computed and ready, amber means the program is computing right now, red means there is an error. Beside it sit summary figures such as the warning count and the part count; clicking the warning takes you to the cut list.

04Your first kitchen in 15 minutes

A tour from end to end. When you finish you will have a drawing, a cut list and a quote.

Read this chapter sitting at your computer with the program open. The aim is not to learn everything — it is to see the whole job once. The detail comes in the chapters after it.

Step 1 — Open an empty project

1. Click New Project on the welcome screen. A sample kitchen loads.
2. Pick a cabinet in the Assemblies list on the left, press F4 to open the right panel, and press the bin button (Delete cabinet) in its header. Clear them all this way — or keep them if you would rather experiment on the sample; either is fine. Carrying on with an empty room teaches you more.
3. Click the project name at the top of the left panel and type a name, for example Yılmaz kitchen.

Step 2 — Give the room its real dimensions

1. Switch to Plan on the toolbar above the viewport (or press V). You get a dimensioned floor plan seen from above.
2. Click a wall's dimension text — 3600, say. It becomes editable; type the real measurement and press Enter. The wall snaps to exactly that length.
3. Do the same for the other walls. Your room is now at its real size.

Step 3 — Line up the base cabinets

1. Press the Add cabinet button next to the Assemblies heading in the left panel. A list grouped into categories opens.
2. Under the Kitchen heading click Base — 2 door. The cabinet enters the project and appears in the list.
3. In the plan, grab the cabinet and drag it. As you approach a wall the wall highlights and the cabinet backs onto it by itself. If there is another cabinet beside it, it seats flush against it — no gap left between them.
4. Add three or four more base cabinets the same way and line them along the wall. Try the drawer, sink-base and corner types.

Step 4 — Put in the worktop and the appliances

1. From the Add menu above the viewport pick Worktop, then click the wall you lined the cabinets against. The worktop is pulled over the base cabinets on that wall.
2. Press Add appliance under the Appliances heading on the left and choose Sink. Drag the sink onto the worktop in the plan — the sink cut-out opens by itself.
3. Add and place Cooktop, Refrigerator and Dishwasher the same way.

Step 5 — Add the wall cabinets

Add cabinet ▸ Kitchen ▸ Wall cabinet again. Wall units hang at 1450 mm; when you drag them in the plan they seat against the wall independently of the base cabinets. Don't forget a Range hood over the hob.

Step 6 — Look at what came out

1. Press V for the 3D view. Hold the left mouse button and drag to orbit around it; the wheel zooms in and out.
2. Look at the Cut List tab below. Every panel to be cut, its size, quantity, grain direction and which edges get banded is there.
3. Switch to Nesting — you see how the parts lay out on the sheet, how many sheets it takes and the waste percentage.
4. The Quote tab gives you material, hardware, labour and installation lines with a VAT-inclusive total.
5. The G-code tab already has the program for the CNC; Export .nc writes it to a folder.

Step 7 — Save

Press ⌘S (Ctrl+S on Windows/Linux), pick a place and a name. Your file is saved with a .mcam extension — the whole project is inside it.

05Drawing the room

Walls, corners, doors, windows, passages and niches.

Every project starts with a room. The room gives the walls the cabinets will back onto and the real dimensions the program measures from. You draw the room in the Plan view.

Three ways to change a wall's length

1. By typing the measurement (the exact way). Click the dimension text outside the wall, type the real measurement, press Enter. This lets you enter what you measured with a tape directly.
2. By dragging the corner. Drag the small handle where two walls meet. The corner moves in 10 mm steps, so even dragging by hand gives you round numbers.
3. By sliding the wall. With the Select tool active, grab the body of a wall and drag: the wall slides parallel to itself and both of its corners move together. The fastest way to widen a room in one direction.

L-shaped, U-shaped and more complex rooms

Grab the handle in the middle of a wall and drag: a new corner opens at that point and you start dragging it immediately. One gesture turns a straight wall into an L. Repeat it and you can build a U, a room with a recess, a room around a column — as many corners as you like.

Doors, windows, passages and niches

The Add menu above the viewport carries four wall elements:

1. Pick the element you want from the Add menu. A hint appears at the bottom of the screen: “click a wall”.
2. Click where it goes on whichever wall. The element lands at that point.
3. Click the placed element and an inspector card opens beside it: width, height, sill, material, colour, hinge side…
4. Drag it along the wall to reposition it, or pull the handles on its edges to make it wider.

06Adding cabinets

The ready-made catalogue, searching, placement and standard module widths.

The ready-made catalogue

The Add cabinet button in the left panel opens the ready-made cabinets, grouped under seven headings:

• Kitchen — base units (single/double door, drawers, pan drawers, sink base, open shelf, push-to-open, soft close, Shaker/raised/beadboard/cathedral fronts, wine rack), wall units (plain, wide short, glazed display, divided-light display, lift-up flap, tambour appliance garage, open shelf, tall, plate rack) and tall units (pantry, pull-out larder, oven housing).
• Bathroom — vanity with drawers and with doors, wall-hung vanity, tall/laundry unit, mirror cabinet, WC/cistern unit.
• TV unit — 3-door and drawer lowboards, open-shelf console, media tower, floating lowboard, open bookcase.
• Wardrobe — 2/3/4-door and 2/3-sliding wardrobes, 5-drawer dresser, 2-drawer nightstand.
• General — plain base, wall and tall units, open shelf, 4-drawer unit. A starting point for your own design.
• Curved — base and wall units with a curved front.
• Corner — diagonal and L-shaped corner base/wall units.

Searching

The list is long; type into the Search cabinets… box at the top of the menu. The search scans the Turkish name, the English name and the category heading together, and it folds Turkish letters — type gardirop and you still find Gardırop; type corner and only that group stays. Enter adds the first result, Esc closes the menu.

Placing the cabinet

A newly added cabinet first lands at the edge of the room. To seat it, drag it in the Plan view. While you drag, the program does three things by itself:

• Snaps it to the wall. The wall you approach highlights; when you let go the cabinet backs onto it and faces into the room.
• Butts it against its neighbour. If there is another cabinet or appliance on the same wall and the same tier (base/wall), it seats flush with no gap between them. That includes the cabinet next to the fridge.
• Recognises corners. If you picked a corner unit it seats into the room's corner rather than onto one wall.

You can fine-tune with the keyboard: with a cabinet selected, the arrow keys move it 10 mm, Shift+arrow 1 mm, Alt+arrow 100 mm. (What the arrow keys do is chosen in Settings ▸ Arrow keys — chapter 19.)

Duplicating and deleting

With a cabinet selected, the Duplicate cabinet button at the top of the right panel makes a copy with all of its settings — that is how you get six identical cabinets in one kitchen. The Delete cabinet button beside it removes it. Both are undone with ⌘Z.

Standard module widths

Kitchen cabinets in Türkiye are built at certain widths. The program knows the ladder:

150 · 200 · 250 · 300 · 350 · 400 · 450 · 500 · 550 · 600 · 700 · 800 · 900 · 1000 · 1100 · 1200 mm

In a width field the ↑ and ↓ keys jump to the next and previous standard size. Typing a non-standard size is not blocked — the program marks it “custom” and tells you the nearest module. If a column, a pipe or an out-of-square wall means you need an 835 mm cabinet, you make an 835 mm cabinet; the program just makes it visible that this was a deliberate choice.

07The custom cabinet wizard

Building a cabinet the catalogue doesn't have — drawn before you add it.

If the ready-made cabinets don't cover your job, choose Add cabinet ▸ Custom cabinet…. In the window that opens you describe the cabinet from scratch, and a 3D preview of it is drawn on the right as you go — you see what you are getting before it enters the project.

The sections of the window

Compartments — cutting the inside into cells

The inside of a cabinet does not have to be one door and a few shelves: three drawers on the left, a door on the right, an open shelf above it — all in one carcass. That is what the Compartments section is for, and the drawing in the middle is not only a front elevation, it is the tool itself: click a cell and it is selected; click it again and it is cut exactly where you clicked. Shelf and divider lines can be dragged with the mouse — as you drag, the two pieces either side of the line are written out in millimetres.

The settings of the selected compartment

• Split across (shelf) / Split down (divider) — cuts the selected compartment in two down the middle. To cut at a particular place, click that point in the drawing instead of pressing the button.
• Merge — merges the compartment back into its parent; whatever was in it stays in the first cell.
• This cell holds — that compartment's front: Door, Drawers or Open. Depending on what you pick you are asked for a door or drawer count.
• Shelves inside — how many shelves go inside that one compartment. Rather than cutting it four times to get three shelves, just say three.
• Cell size — Share: it shares the space with its siblings, so changing the cabinet's height changes this compartment too. Fixed mm: its size stays put and the others share what is left. Use fixed for anything whose size is already decided — an oven, a drawer bank.

From this compartment

The four tiles under the settings state what comes out of the selected compartment only: how many parts will be cut, how many metres of edge-banding, how many holes and how many m² of board. Turning one door into three drawers is the edit that changes a cabinet's part count most, and these tiles show you by how much before the cabinet is even added to the project. holes is different from the other three: which holes actually get bored is decided by the machine in your workshop, so until you ask, it shows a dash (—) — press it and the program runs. Change a dimension and the dash comes back, because it is a different cabinet now.

The + N more parts are the carcass and the dividers line under the tiles is there for a reason: the carcass (sides, bottom, top, back, plinth) belongs to no compartment, and neither does the shelf between two compartments — that shelf is what makes them two, so it cannot be charged to either one. The compartments plus that line come to exactly the Parts figure on the right.

The preview

The preview on the right computes the cabinet with the real engine — so what you are looking at is exactly what will enter the cut list and the drilling program once you add it, not an artist's impression. Below it the Part count and Overall size are shown; change a dimension and they update instantly.

My templates

Don't rebuild the cabinet you make every week. Once the settings are right, type a name into the My templates section and press Save. Next time one click on that name brings every setting back. Templates live on your computer and work in every project.

When you're ready press Add cabinet; it enters the project and from then on moves, edits and duplicates like any other cabinet.

08The properties panel

Every setting of the selected cabinet, section by section.

This is the panel that opens when you select a cabinet and press F4 (or click the right-panel button in the top bar). The headings run down it in this order.

Dimensions

Width, Height, Depth. In the width field the arrow keys jump between standard modules (chapter 6). The unit button in the heading switches between mm / cm / m — that changes the on-screen display only; CNC output always stays in millimetres.

Placement

X (the width axis), Y (the depth axis), Z (height) and Rotation. Dragging in the plan changes these values; you can also type them here. To hang a wall unit at 1500 instead of 1450, just type Z.

Construction

• Method — Frameless (32 mm), the modern standard, or Face frame (American style).
• Carcass and Back panel — which material and how many mm.
• Mount — how the back is fixed to the carcass: Grooved in, Rabbeted or Applied. This choice directly changes the cut sizes and the routing program.
• Corner joint — Minifix + Dowel, Dowel, Confirmat or Domino. The drilling program and the hardware list are produced accordingly.
• Drawer box and Frame stock — shown when the relevant types are selected.

Front & interior

The cabinet's front: Door, Drawer, Sliding, Tambour, Appliance housing or Open. Sub-settings open depending on what you pick — door count and hinge side, drawer count, dividers, sliding leaf count, appliance aperture. Also:

• Glazed — puts glass in the door; Muntin rows/columns turns it into a divided-light display cabinet.
• Lift-up flap — an upward-opening wall-unit door (the Aventos-type mechanism enters the quote).
• Door style — Slab, Shaker, Raised panel, Beadboard or Cathedral. Routed styles are priced as their own line on the quote.
• Front material and Shelves — the front can be a different material from the carcass; the shelf count is set here.

Fittings

• Handles — Bar, Knob, Handleless (gola), Push-to-open or J-pull. The handle choice affects both the drilling program and the quote.
• Legs — adjustable leg height.
• LED — Under-cabinet, Interior or Plinth (floor wash).
• Interior fittings — cutlery tray, wire basket, waste bin, corner carousel, larder mechanism, hanging rail, wine rack, plate rack.
• Cornice (cove / crown) and Light rail — the top and bottom trims of wall units.
• Soft close and End panel Left/Right — visible end panels for the cabinets at the ends of a run.

Front finish

For giving this cabinet's fronts a different look on their own (a contrasting island, a two-tone kitchen). This is render only — the panel that gets cut, its size and its price do not change. Switched off, the fronts inherit the room's finish.

09Appliances and decor

White goods, bathroom fixtures and staging objects.

The Add appliance menu in the left panel has three headings:

• Appliances — refrigerator, oven, cooktop, range hood, dishwasher, sink, microwave, washing machine, cooker, wine cooler, coffee machine, American fridge, freezer, warming drawer.
• Decor — plant, bar stool, pendant light, floor lamp, rug, wall art, vase, blinds, wall clock, fruit bowl, pouf, books, bottle, plate stack.
• Bathroom — toilet, basin, bathtub, shower, towel radiator.

The search box here also scans the Turkish name, the English name and the category together: typing buzdolabi is enough.

Placing them

Appliances drag in the plan just like cabinets, and show the same wall-snap and butt-to-neighbour behaviour. So the fridge seats at the end of a base-cabinet run with no gap.

Built-in appliances

When you bring an appliance in front of a cabinet, the program seats it into that cabinet. The Built into field in the right panel names which cabinet it went into. For a built-in appliance:

• The cabinet opens up — doors and shelves drop away to make room for it.
• The appliance now follows the cabinet: move the cabinet and it comes along.
• A hob and a sink cut their own hole in the worktop above them.

If it says — free-standing, the appliance is not tied to any cabinet; it stands on its own.

Appliance settings

In the right panel each appliance has dimensions, placement, a Finish (stainless / black / white) and a Unit price. The price you enter goes straight into the “Appliance” section of the quote.

Decor objects

Furniture objects (dining table, chair, sofa, armchair, coffee table, TV unit, bookshelf, bed, nightstand, wardrobe, desk, dresser) come from the Add ▸ Furniture menu; they drag freely in the plan and turn with the Rotation field.

10Worktops, islands and bars

Pulling a worktop, choosing its edge, sink/hob cut-outs and building an island.

Adding a worktop

1. Line up the base cabinets first — the worktop will sit on them.
2. Choose Add ▸ Worktop, then click that wall. The worktop is pulled along the wall, over the cabinets.
3. Click the worktop and its inspector card opens.

If there are no base cabinets on that wall yet the program tells you so; place the cabinets first.

Worktop settings

Sink and hob cut-outs

The Cut-outs section of the inspector manages the holes in the worktop. There are two ways:

• Automatic. Place a sink or hob appliance on the worktop and the hole opens by itself, shown as “Over …” and tied to that appliance. Move the appliance and the hole moves with it.
• By hand. The Sink or Hob button adds a free-standing hole that you can drag in the plan. These are marked “— manual”. Corner R sets the corner radius and Back margin its distance from the wall.

Islands

Add ▸ Island builds a free-standing worktop in the middle of the room. An island carries all of the worktop settings (edge, bar overhang, cut-outs) and additionally turns about its own centre from the Rotation field. Place base cabinets under it to complete the island — the program reminds you of this. When you give it a bar overhang, the support brackets are written onto the quote with their count.

11Room look and finishes

Floor, walls, ceiling, lighting and material finishes.

With nothing selected, the right panel shows the room's own settings. Everything here is about appearance; this is where you set up the 3D scene you will show the customer.

Floor

Pattern: Plain, Tiles, Herringbone parquet, Chevron parquet, Basketweave parquet. The colour swatch beside it sets the floor colour.

Walls

Wall colour and pattern: Paint, Subway tile, Grid tile, Hexagon tile, Herringbone, Slat wall, Wood planks and three wallpaper patterns (stripe, trellis, grasscloth). Pick a tile and Tile colour and Grout colour appear as well.

Backsplash and listello

Backsplash is the ceramic band between the worktop and the wall units (roughly 900–1500 mm); it has its own pattern and colour. Listello is a thin decorative border at waist height (≈1100 mm) and is priced by the metre — so it enters the quote.

Accent tiles

To put a contrasting tile panel on part of a wall, choose + Add accent panel. You set which wall, how far from the corner, how high off the floor and at what size. Use it for a feature wall behind a basin or a bed.

Ceiling

Open (none), Painted or Panel grid. The ceiling is only drawn in interior and eye-level views; looking down into the room it hides itself so the plan stays readable.

Lighting

Downlights spacing (Dense 700 mm / Normal 900 mm / Sparse 1200 mm), LED cove and Light colour (Warm / Neutral / Cool). The fittings really do emit light in the render. Downlights and the LED cove also enter the quote — by the piece and by the metre.

Finishes

A finish is chosen separately for Cabinets and Worktop: Matte, Gloss, Oak, Walnut, Glass, Marble, Granite, Concrete, Butcher block, Gloss quartz. To give one cabinet's fronts a different finish, use that cabinet's own Front finish setting (chapter 8).

12Auto kitchen and importing

Furnishing the room with one press, and taking in existing drawings and 3D models.

Auto kitchen

From the Auto menu above the viewport press Auto kitchen. The program looks at the room you drew and builds a complete kitchen: it fills the walls with standard modules, lines up base and wall units, pulls the worktops, and places the sink, hob, fridge and dishwasher. When it finishes it tells you how many base units, wall units, appliances and worktops it placed.

• You must have drawn a room first — the layout needs walls. With no room the program says so.
• The result is undone in a single step: if you don't like it, ⌘Z.
• What comes out is an ordinary kitchen — you can edit, delete and duplicate each cabinet one by one. Treat it as a starting point.

Auto worktops only fills in what's missing: it pulls a worktop onto every wall that has a run of base cabinets and no worktop.

Importing DXF

If your architect or your customer gave you the flat's plan as a .dxf, Auto ▸ Import DXF takes it in without you redrawing the room. The program reads the wall lines from the file and turns them into a room; you line the cabinets up on top.

Importing a 3D model

Auto ▸ Import 3D brings a .glb / .gltf model into the scene — a special light fitting, an armchair the customer liked, an object the architect sent. These models count as decor: they appear in the scene, and are never cut or priced.

13Working with AI

Adding, changing and removing cabinets — and laying out a kitchen — by describing it.

Press the MODULES ▸ + button in the left panel; the last item in the cabinet list that opens — Cabinet with AI — opens a text box. You write what you want in ordinary language and the program turns it into real cabinets. It can do four things:

How it works

1. Type your request and press Generate.
2. The answer comes back as a preview first: cabinets to be added are drawn, ones to be changed are shown as they stand now, and removals are listed under their own heading. Nothing enters the project until you approve it.
3. If you like it, press Add to project (or, depending on the operation, Apply changes / Remove cabinets / Lay out kitchen). If you don't, press Discard.
4. Even after applying, ⌘Z takes the whole thing back in one step.

Why you can trust it

• A cabinet the AI produced goes through the same engine as one you built by hand. The cut list, the drilling program and the quote come out identically — there is no separate, less trustworthy “AI cabinet”.
• A change is really a change: it does not rebuild the cabinet, it writes only the field you named. Its material, handle, door style, end panels and placement stay exactly as they were.
• For removals the program shows you a picture of the cabinet you are about to lose, not an id.

It needs a key

This feature runs on your own Anthropic API key. Paste your key — it starts with sk-ant-… — into Settings ▸ AI key and save. The key is stored on this computer only and goes straight to Anthropic; it never passes through our servers. You can remove it at any time with Clear key.

14Views and rendering

Getting around in 3D, reading the plan, presenting, and producing a photoreal image.

Getting around in the 3D view

By default the arrow keys orbit the view (Shift pans). If you would rather they move the selected cabinet, change it in Settings ▸ Arrow keys.

The plan view

A dimensioned 2D drawing seen from above. Wall lengths, cabinet runs, worktops, sink/hob cut-outs and section lines all live here. Drag to pan, wheel to zoom; F or the Fit button brings everything on screen. The small box at the top right gives the room's dimensions and area.

Present mode

The amber Present button in the top bar (or ⇧F11) does three things at once: switches to the 3D view, turns on the realistic render, and folds every panel away. Only the model is left — use it when showing a customer. Esc or F11 leaves and brings everything back.

If you only want full screen (panels kept, window frame and taskbar gone), F11 is enough.

Photorealistic rendering

The Render button above the viewport gives a fast, realistic image. A step beyond it is Photo Render: it computes real light transport — colour bleed, refraction through glass, true reflections. The image cleans up over time; the percentage next to the button shows how close it is to the level counted as clean.

• Moving the camera starts the computation over — set the angle first, then start it.
• Stop returns you to the fast view at any moment.
• Save render as PNG writes the image to disk. The render you save is also taken as the cover photo of the customer proposal (chapter 16).
• If your computer is struggling, lower Settings ▸ Render quality.

15The output tabs

Ten documents derived from your drawing. You fill in none of them by hand.

The tabs in the bottom panel are different faces of the current drawing. The moment you change anything in the drawing they all recompute themselves. Their order is the order the job runs in the workshop.

Cut List

Every panel to be cut: its material, Length × Width × Thickness, Grain direction (length / width / none), Qty, its area, and which of its edges get banded in the Band column. The Part column says which parts that line is.

The list comes cabinet by cabinet, because that is how a job is built in the workshop. Each cabinet's header carries its own figures: how many parts, how many metres of banding, how many m² of board, and — once the machine program has been computed — how many holes. Clicking a header folds that cabinet's rows away; on a thirty-cabinet kitchen that is how you find the one you are looking for. Collapse all in the toolbar folds every one at once.

The search box above narrows by part name, material or size; when it narrows, the counter says so — 5 / 39 rows — and every header re-totals from the rows it has left. While a search is on, folded cabinets open by themselves — otherwise the search would be hiding what it just found. Merge identical parts, by contrast, sets the cabinets aside and collects every identical blank in the project onto one line: that is the saw's list, and it is what the CSV gives you.

Export CSV takes it into Excel or your own program.

Nesting

How the parts lay out on the sheet. The summary bar gives the Sheets count, the Yield percentage, the Parts count, the Waste and the Stock cost. Below it each sheet is drawn as its own card, with rotated parts marked. The saw kerf is accounted for.

Sheet stock and offcuts

The Stock button lets you declare the sheets you actually have for that material: sheet size and quantity on hand (leave it empty and it counts as unlimited). The real gain is here: usable offcuts from a run (≥ 300 mm on an edge) can be recorded as remnants with the Stock button. On later jobs the program uses the remnants first — the material you have already paid for. A sheet cut from a remnant costs nothing, and that shows up on the quote too.

Materials

Every item this job has to buy, with its price — and the place those prices are changed. It comes in two sections: Bought by the board (the price is the price of one sheet) and Bought by measure (the price is per metre or per m²). Each row carries the Item, This job — how much of it this project takes — and an editable Unit price. The materials-and-hardware total sits at the foot.

If a material has no price at all, the status bar says unpriced and takes you here; the match button on the row writes the suggested market price in one press. Where the price the quote actually used differs from the one you typed — a per-sheet price derived from mixed stock, or the coefficient a profiled edge applies — the program shows that separately.

Quote

What the job costs, in six sections: Material, Hardware, Fitting, Appliance, Labour, Installation. The VAT-inclusive total sits at the top. Chapter 16 covers it in detail.

G-code

The program that goes to the CNC. A separate .nc file is produced for each sheet; you can read the code on screen and see the toolpaths drawn. The summary bar says how many bores, edge bores, contours and grooves there are, and the Machine time — how many hours and minutes the program will run for. The same figure appears on each sheet's header; hover it to see the split into cutting, plunging, drilling, rapid travel and tool changes. It is a floor: it leaves out the machine's acceleration and the operator, so the job will not take less than this.

• Pick your machine profile from the Machine list: Generic ISO 3-axis router, Generic ISO 3-axis router (expanded drill) — for controllers that do not implement canned cycles — or Generic ISO router + horizontal boring head. The last one also does the edge bores (minifix, dowel) a flat router cannot.
• Export .nc writes the files to the folder you choose.
• Send to machine lets you name the folder the machine reads (a USB stick, a network share) once; every send after that is one click.
• Export DXF gives you each nested sheet as a DXF — for those who use their own CAM.

Edge-band

The work order for the banding job. The Panels count, the finished Tape length, the Roll quantity to buy (including the allowance per edge) and the Est. run time. The Runs view groups the work; the Order view tells you which panel to feed in which sequence — so you change tape and settings as few times as possible. Save order prints it as a .txt work order.

Drawings

A scaled, dimensioned drawing set: Floor Plan, Services Plan, Kitchen Walls (an elevation of each wall), Sections, Cabinets and Parts (a manufacturing drawing of every panel with its drilling and routing). Print / PDF opens the whole set in your browser; print it or save it as PDF from there.

Three-dimensional export happens here too:

Labels

A label to stick on every part: its name, size, which cabinet it belongs to and its banding. Print / PDF prints the label sheet. It is what stops a part getting lost between the saw and the assembly bench.

Assembly

A step-by-step assembly guide for each cabinet: which parts, in which order, with which hardware. The part list and hardware list sit under each cabinet. Print it with Print / PDF and hand it to the fitter.

Source JSON

The project in raw form — the text the program actually stores. For advanced users: you can edit it directly, copy it, or download it as a .mcam file.

16Pricing and the quote

Setting up your own prices and handing the customer a branded proposal.

The price book

The program ships with default prices, but your prices are your business. Open Settings ▸ Pricing and enter your own figures. What you change is permanent and applies across every project:

• VAT rate — as a percentage.
• Fitting unit prices — handle (each), gola profile (metre), LED strip (metre), legs (each), sliding track, tambour (m²), routed door style, downlight, LED cove, cutlery tray, wire basket, waste bin, corner carousel, pull-out larder, hanging rail, wine rack, plate rack, listello, bar bracket.
• Edge banding (metre), worktop edge (metre), wall tiling (m²).
• Labour — your hourly rate, plus the times for cutting (min/part), boring (sec/hole), routing (m/min) and assembly (min/cabinet).
• Installation — delivery, and the fee per cabinet, per appliance and per worktop.

The Reset to defaults button clears every change you made.

Changing the price of one line

The unit prices are editable in place on the Quote tab. To price one item differently for this job, change the figure right there. The reset link returns to the default price book. The same bar also lets you change the Workshop labour rate and the VAT rate on the spot.

Items with no price are counted separately as unpriced — make sure that number is zero before you hand the quote to a customer.

Preparing a customer proposal

The Proposal button on the Quote tab produces the branded document you give the customer. In the window that opens:

1. Type the Client name and contact details. If you assigned someone from the customer book, press Fill the proposal fields from this customer and skip the typing.
2. Fill in Reference and Prepared by (your workshop's name).
3. Optionally write a short Intro sentence and Terms (one item per line: payment, lead time, warranty…).
4. Use Choose… to add your workshop's logo (PNG / SVG). Your logo goes on the cover and the MobiCAM name moves to the footer.
5. For the cover image, first save a render in the 3D view (chapter 14) — the window will then say 3D render captured.
6. Two switches set the document's scope: Wall elevations (include the design drawings?) and Itemised pricing (show the full price list, or only the total?).
7. Press Create proposal. The document opens in your browser; print it or save it as a PDF and send it to the customer.

17Customers

Whose job it is, what stage it's at, and what it's worth.

The Customers button in the top bar (also reachable from the welcome screen) opens your workshop's book. It has two tabs.

People

On the left the customer list and a search box; on the right the selected customer's card: Name / Company, Phone, E-mail, Address and a free Note field (site address, preferred colour, outstanding balance…). New customer adds one.

Below the card sits that person's Jobs list: which projects are theirs, when each was last saved, what it comes to. Press Open on a job and the project opens directly.

Assigning a project to a customer

With the project open, press Assign to this project in the customer book — or pick the customer in the proposal window. After assigning, save the project; that is when the job lands in the book.

Each job carries a Status: Draft, Quoted, Won, In production, Delivered, Lost.

The jobs board

The second tab shows the whole workshop's jobs by stage on one screen: what's in cutting, what's out for quote, what's being delivered. The total value of open jobs is shown at the top. To see closed (delivered/lost) jobs too, tick Show closed as well.

18Saving, backup and recovery

Everything you need to know so you never lose work.

The project file

Projects are saved with a .mcam extension. A .mcam file is the whole project: the room, the cabinets, the appliances, the finishes, your price edits, the proposal details. Copying that one file is enough to back it up or move it to another computer.

• ⌘S saves. If the file has never been saved it asks for a place and a name.
• ⌘O opens, ⌘N starts a new project.
• The small dot beside the project name in the top bar means there are unsaved changes.

Automatic backup

The program snapshots your work every 15 seconds on its own. This snapshot is not a substitute for the file you save — it is what steps in if the power goes, the program crashes or the computer shuts down.

When that happens, the next time you open the program it asks Recoverable work found. Press Restore, then save immediately with ⌘S — the program reminds you of this too.

The close guard

If you try to close the window with unsaved changes, the program offers three choices: Save and quit, Quit without saving, Cancel. Losing work by accidentally closing is not possible.

If something goes wrong

If the program hits an unexpected error it shows an error screen rather than a white one. On that screen:

• It tries to snapshot your work and tells you the result.
• Save project to file lets you rescue your work right there.
• Copy error details gives you the technical information to send us — it speeds up the fix.
• Reload refreshes the program; at launch it offers to restore the snapshot.

19Settings

The Settings row at the foot of the left panel, or ⌘,.

Data sharing (KVKK)

To help improve MobiCAM's design AI, you can share an anonymised copy of what you draw. This setting ships switched off; nothing is collected or sent until you turn it on.

If you turn it on, what is kept: room dimensions and walls, cabinets and their parameters, material names and thicknesses, cutting/machining settings, and the generated G-code.

What is removed: the project name, the customer and preparer names, dates, the proposal text and your logo, the room name, your price list (VAT, prices, labour, installation), supplier and stock codes, and the names of files you imported.

Samples are written to a folder on your computer first, and the panel shows you that folder — what gets sent is the very file you see there, not a preview of it. Turning the setting off deletes every sample in the folder.

20Keyboard shortcuts

⌘ on a Mac, Ctrl on Windows and Linux.

21Troubleshooting

Common situations and what to do about them.

“Windows protected your PC” appears during install

That is normal; the program has no digital signature yet. More info ▸ Run anyway. It is not a virus warning.

The Mac says “Apple could not verify”

System Settings ▸ Privacy & Security ▸ Open Anyway at the bottom of the page. You are only asked on first launch. Alternatively, xattr -cr /Applications/MobiCAM.app in Terminal also opens it.

The 3D view is empty or black

First try F to fit the view — the model may simply be off screen. On Linux, see the WEBKIT_DISABLE_DMABUF_RENDERER=1 fix in chapter 2. If it persists, set Settings ▸ Render quality to Low and restart the program.

The view stutters and the mouse lags

Lower Settings ▸ Render quality. If the photo render is running, press Stop — path tracing uses the machine's graphics power continuously.

The worktop won't go in / it says there are no base cabinets on this wall

A worktop sits on base cabinets. Line the base cabinets against that wall first, then choose Add ▸ Worktop and click the wall.

Auto kitchen does nothing

You have to draw a room first — the layout needs walls. See chapter 5.

The cut list is empty

There are no cabinets in the project yet. Decor objects and furniture never enter the cut list — only real cabinets do.

The quote has “unpriced” items

No price has been entered for those items. Fill them in from Settings ▸ Pricing, or type the unit price directly on the row in the Quote tab.

I delete a cabinet and it stays / Delete does nothing

Cabinets are not deleted with Delete. Select the cabinet, press F4 to open the right panel, and press the Delete cabinet button in its header.

The arrow keys move the wrong thing

Choose between Camera, Selection and Auto in Settings ▸ Arrow keys.

The AI panel says “enter a key”

Enter your own Anthropic API key in Settings ▸ AI key (chapter 13).

I want to report a problem

On the Settings ▸ About & support screen press Copy support info and send it to us with a screenshot. If you also attach the file from the log folder named on that screen, diagnosis gets much faster.

22Glossary

Terms used in this manual and in the program.

Parametric

A way of drawing in which everything updates itself when you change a dimension. You change the cabinet's width; the side panels, shelves, doors, hole positions and the price change with it.

Module

A single cabinet. They sit in the Assemblies list in the program. “Standard module width” means the cabinet widths the trade is used to (150–1200 mm).

Cut list

The list of which panels to cut, from which material, at what size and how many. It also gives grain direction and which edges get banded.

Nesting

Laying the parts out on the sheet so as to waste as little as possible.

Waste

The unusable material left over after cutting a sheet. Shown as a percentage; larger pieces can be taken into stock as remnants.

Kerf (saw allowance)

The thickness of material the saw blade consumes as it cuts. It is part of the nesting calculation; without it the parts look like they fit on the sheet when in fact they don't.

G-code

The command language a CNC machine understands. The program writes it for you; all you pick is your machine profile.

Post-processor / machine profile

The setting that decides which machine the G-code is written for. The same drawing produces different code under different profiles.

BOM

Bill of Materials. The equivalent of the breakdown on the Quote tab.

Carcass

The cabinet's skeleton without its fronts: sides, bottom, top, back, shelves.

Gola

The aluminium grip profile used in handleless kitchens, running above or beside the front.

Minifix / Confirmat / Dowel

Ways of joining the carcass corners. Your choice changes the drilling program and the hardware list.

System-32

The worldwide standard hole system, with shelf and hinge holes drilled at 32 mm spacing. It is the basis of frameless cabinets.

Built-in (ankastre)

An appliance recessed into a cabinet (oven, dishwasher, hob). In the program you only bring the appliance in front of the cabinet; it does the rest.

Section

A technical drawing showing the kitchen as if cut through a plane and viewed from the side. Used to read heights and depths.

Render

A computed image of the three-dimensional model that looks like a photograph. Used for presenting to the customer.

DXF · OBJ · glTF · STEP

File-exchange formats for other programs. DXF is a 2D drawing, OBJ and glTF are 3D display models, and STEP is an editable solid CAD model.

.mcam

The MobiCAM project file. It holds the whole project; back it up and move it as a single file.