Specs & measurements

The Specs tab shows the lure's length, width and depth continuously as you edit. Clicking the headline dimensions copies them to the clipboard.

These are computed in a background worker, so dragging a control point never stutters while the numbers catch up.

The readout is written in two bands, and each one collapses. Body holds the length, width, depth and volume, and starts open. Positions says where the widest and deepest points and the centre of mass fall, measured from the nose. Open either or both; the choice is remembered.

The finished lure's weight, float angle and balance — with the wire, hooks, ballast and coating counted — are on the Build tab, under Buoyancy and checks.

Specs has its own tab, so it is always one click away, and the headline dimensions and volume stay on the tab strip even when the panel is folded away — the numbers you check most are never more than a glance from wherever you are working.

Volume is integrated from the actual surface rather than estimated from a formula. It is always shown in cubic centimetres, to one decimal place (105.2 cm³), regardless of whether you work in inches or millimetres.

The integration refines adaptively until the result stops changing, instead of using a fixed number of slices — so a slim pencil and a fat popper are both accurate, rather than one being accurate and the other approximate.

The unit selector in the toolbar switches every length in the interface at once — millimetres, centimetres or inches. Nothing in the editor is shown in a fixed unit; the exported files are always in millimetres.

Positions along the lure are measured in a straight line. Volume is the deliberate exception to the unit selector: always cubic centimetres.

Grid & guides

Scale reference and station lines.

Curvature comb

Quills drawn normal to every edited curve in the outline, side profile and cross-section views, longer where the curve bends tighter. This is the fastest way to find a flat spot in a curve that looks fine to the eye. How to read it: a smooth envelope along the quill tips means the curvature flows smoothly; a step in the envelope at a control point is a sudden change in curvature there; quills shrinking to the curve are a flat spot. Each comb stays outside the lure — back quills above the back, belly quills below the belly, outline quills away from the centreline — so it never cuts through the body. Where a curve turns from convex to concave (a back flowing into a lifted nose, say) a small ring on the curve marks the inflection. Curves in one view share a scale (back and belly quills compare directly); the tightest spots, such as a pinched nose tip, are capped so they do not shrink the rest of the comb.

Volume distribution

How volume is spread along the length — where the lure carries its float.

Use Lure → Open ghost… to load a second lure as a reference. It is drawn dashed underneath the one you are editing, in every view, and the Compare section on the Reference tab shows how your length, width, depth and volume differ from it. The cross-section ghost is interpolated to whatever station you are looking at, so the comparison is like-for-like.

This is the practical way to answer "what did I actually change from the one that worked".