Support
ShapeWake is in private beta. It's coming to the Mac App Store and to iPad.
Contact
Email support@shapewake.com. For a problem with a board or a cut, attach the .shapewake file and say which machine and post-processor you use.
Questions people ask
- Mac or iPad, .s3dx files, machines, imperial or metric, fin box pockets, bridges and more
- What's in Free, Shaper and Shop
- How the cut works: the carve preview, the flip and the re-zero
- Inside the app, the circled ? beside every slider and setting explains it for the board in front of you.
Subscriptions
Free covers designing, fins and paint, with no time limit. Shaper ($5.99 a month or $49 a year) and Shop ($17.99 a month or $169 a year) are auto-renewing subscriptions bought inside the app through Apple and billed to your Apple Account. We never see your payment details.
Restore purchases
Subscriptions belong to your Apple Account, not to a ShapeWake account (there isn't one). On a new or reset Mac or iPad, sign in with the same Apple Account, open ShapeWake and choose Restore Purchases in ShapeWake's Settings. Your plan comes back without paying again.
Cancel a subscription
- iPad: open Settings, tap your name, tap Subscriptions, tap ShapeWake, then Cancel Subscription.
- Mac: open the App Store, click your name at the bottom of the sidebar, click Subscriptions, click ShapeWake, then Cancel Subscription.
You keep the plan until the end of the period you've paid for. Apple's own instructions: Cancel a subscription from Apple.
Refunds
Apple handles refunds for App Store purchases: Request a refund from Apple.
System requirements
- Mac
- macOS 26 or later.
- iPad
- iPadOS 26 or later. Apple Pencil is optional.
- CNC (Shop)
- A router whose controller reads one of five posts: Centroid Acorn, GRBL, Mach3/Mach4, LinuxCNC or ShopBot (.sbp), with a bed long enough for your blank. The Centroid Acorn post is proven on a real machine; the other four follow their controllers' documentation but have not cut foam yet, and their file headers say so. Run an air cut first and watch every move. Hot-wire output is for a four-axis foam cutter.
- Files
- .shapewake boards open on both Mac and iPad. .s3dx files can be opened; the original is never written back to.
Before you cut: air-cut first
Run every new G‑code file in the air before it touches foam. Turn on Air cut in Cut › CNC and export: every Z is raised 2" or more, so the bit runs the whole job above the blank. (Or set Z0 well above the blank yourself.) Run the job and watch that the bit stays where the carve preview showed it. Check the header first: where X0 Y0 and Z0 are for this side, the safe height under your Z convention, and the bit and rpm it expects.
- Do the first real cut on a scrap or inexpensive blank of the same size and measure it. Every export includes Test-cut checklist.txt with the thicknesses, widths, length and pocket depth to expect, and a blank beside each for what you measure.
- Fin box pocket depths for Futures ¾" and FCS II are approximate; cut a test pocket in scrap foam and check it against your box before cutting a board.
- Stay at the machine with your hand near the stop for the whole job, use the bit's rated rpm, and wear eye and hearing protection. It's foam, but it's still a spinning tool.
- ShapeWake simulates every pass against the blank before it writes a file, but no simulation knows your machine, your fixtures or your zero. You are responsible for checking a program before running it.
Privacy
The app collects no data. The website's waitlist keeps only the email you give it. Details: Privacy.