Draw straight lines into perspective

Streets, rooms and table tops look convincing when their edges run towards shared vanishing points. Flipline's drawing board can show those points while you draw and pull straight lines onto them.

Show the guide

Choose Line in the drawing rail (shortcut L). The properties panel now has a Perspective guide section. Tick Show perspective guide to draw a horizon and a fan of light reference rays over the canvas.

Choose One point or Two points under Vanishing points. Horizon height (% from top) places the horizon: 50 is the middle of the canvas, 30 lifts it towards the top. First vanishing point (% from left) and, with two points, Second vanishing point (% from left) set where the points sit on the horizon. Values below 0 or above 100 put a point outside the canvas, which is useful for gentle two-point views: try 50 % horizon with points at −40 % and 140 %.

Snap lines

Tick Snap lines to perspective and drag a line. After a short drag, Flipline compares your direction with the direction towards each vanishing point. When one is within 12°, the line end jumps onto the line through that point and stays with it for the rest of the stroke, so a line never flips between points halfway. A line that points elsewhere stays exactly where you drag it, which keeps vertical edges free.

Snapping also works while the guide is hidden; the panel then reminds you that it is still active. Hold Shift while dragging to use the usual 45° angle steps instead. With Snap to grid on, the start of the line follows the grid and a snapped end stays on its perspective line. Symmetry mirrors the finished line, so mirrored copies do not necessarily meet the vanishing point.

What the guide does not do

Only straight lines snap; Pencil, Eraser, Rectangle and Ellipse draw as usual. The guide is a drawing aid: it is not part of the drawing, does not appear in GIF, video, PNG or sprite exports, and is hidden while the animation plays.

Guide settings are kept for the current session only. They are not saved in the project, are not undo steps and reset when you open another project. Every line you draw is a normal mark, so you can select, move or undo it like any other.

Plan on paper or in another app

If you need the guide outside Flipline, open Drawing & animation tools at the bottom of the properties panel and choose Perspective Guide Generator. It creates the same kind of one- or two-point guide as a transparent SVG for printing or for another illustration app, and it is also available to scripts and AI agents through the JSON API and MCP.