Glossary
Fluted panels have grooves cut into one solid board; reeded panels have rounded ridges standing proud of it; a slat wall is separate strips with real gaps between them, which is what lets it absorb sound once felt goes behind. Below, 15 terms from batten to kerf, NRC and DXF vs G-code, each answered in two or three sentences.
A “flute” is the architectural term for a long, rounded, vertical groove — the same ones carved into classical Greek and Roman columns. A fluted panel repeats that concave groove across a flat board, so the name comes straight from column fluting, not from the musical instrument. If the profile sticks out instead of being carved in, it is usually called reeded.
Compare fluted, slat and wave walls →Fluted is concave: the grooves are cut into the surface. Reeded is convex: half-round beads stand proud of the surface. Both repeat at a regular pitch, and from a distance they read similarly, but fluted catches shadow inside the groove while reeded catches highlight on the crown.
Compare the profiles →A slat wall is a series of separate wood strips (slats) fixed at a regular spacing onto a backing panel or rails. Unlike fluted or reeded panels — which are grooves in one continuous board — a slat wall has real gaps between the pieces, which is what gives it depth and lets it absorb sound when combined with felt or a cavity.
How to design one for CNC →In practice the two words are used interchangeably. “Batten” is more common in the UK and Australia and often implies a thicker, more structural strip; “slat” is more common in North America and usually implies a thinner decorative strip. The construction and the CNC files are the same.
A wave wall is a slat wall whose slats vary in depth so their tips trace a flowing surface — the wall appears to ripple. It is called parametric because the shape comes from parameters (amplitude, frequency, phase) rather than from drawing each slat by hand: change one number and every slat updates.
See ready-made wave templates →An acoustic slat wall is a slat wall backed with an absorbent layer — typically PET felt — and often perforated. Sound passes between the slats, enters the porous backing and is converted into heat instead of bouncing back, which lowers echo and reverberation in the room.
How to maximize sound absorption →NRC stands for Noise Reduction Coefficient: the average of a material's sound absorption at 250, 500, 1000 and 2000 Hz, measured under ASTM C423 and rounded to the nearest 0.05. NRC 0 reflects almost everything (bare glass), NRC 1 absorbs almost everything. A wood slat wall over felt lands roughly between 0.4 and 0.85 depending on slat spacing, absorber and cavity depth.
How the studio estimates NRC →Yes, strongly. Wider gaps let more sound reach the absorbent backing, raising absorption; very narrow gaps make the wall behave more like a solid reflective board. Most acoustic designs keep the open area between roughly 20 % and 40 % of the surface.
Spacing and NRC in detail →Kerf is the width of material removed by the cutting tool. On a CNC router it equals the bit diameter (plus a little runout), so a 6 mm bit removes a 6 mm-wide path. Your design must account for kerf: if a slat is narrower than the bit, the machine physically cannot cut it.
“Speed” is how fast the bit spins (RPM) and “feed” is how fast it travels through the material (mm/min). Too slow a feed with high RPM burns the wood; too fast chips and tears it. The right pair depends on material, bit diameter and number of flutes.
Feeds and speeds per material →Nesting is arranging all your parts on the standard sheet you actually buy, so you cut the most pieces from the least material. Good nesting is what decides whether a wall costs three sheets or five.
MDF is cheaper, perfectly uniform, machines to a very clean edge and is ideal if you intend to paint — but it is heavy and hates moisture. Plywood is lighter, stronger, tolerates humidity better and can be left with a visible edge, but voids and tear-out can show. For a painted wall, MDF wins on cost and finish.
Compare every material →DXF and SVG both describe 2D geometry — outlines your CAM software turns into toolpaths — with DXF the CAD/CNC standard and SVG the web/laser standard. G-code is one step further: it is the finished instruction list (move here, plunge this deep, at this feed) that the machine controller executes directly, no CAM needed.
Get G-code without CAM software →STL and OBJ are meshes: triangles that are perfect for 3D printing and rendering but cannot be edited as real geometry. STEP is a solid CAD format: it keeps true faces and dimensions, so it opens in SolidWorks, Fusion 360 or Inventor and stays editable. Use STEP when the file must go into an engineering workflow.
No. A parametric web studio generates the geometry from your dimensions and shape settings, then exports the CNC files directly — so no CAD licence and no modelling skills are required. CAD only becomes useful if you want to modify the result yourself afterwards.
Download CNC files free →Set your dimensions, shape the relief, check the machining simulation and export CNC-ready files. Designing is free and unlimited.
Open the studio — free