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Memory maps & connecting

What your drawing remembers - and how it turns single strokes into webs. The heart of Nekudot.

What a memory map is

A memory map is simply what your drawing remembers - every spot you've drawn, kept as a scatter of points. It has no pixels of its own; it just remembers where your strokes have been. As you draw, each new point joins the map, and that growing record is the map's trail.

Maps are shared across every layer, so the same memory feeds your whole drawing. You can keep several maps and switch between them in the Maps panel (m). Each map row has a Flash button that briefly lights up that map's points on the canvas - glowing dots that pulse, then fade.

Check the memory Not sure why the web is reaching somewhere? Hit Flash (m → the map row) to see exactly which points your drawing remembers. Invisible strokes and erased marks still show - a great way to understand where your next connections will land.

How connecting works

When a connecting brush lays down a point, it reaches out to nearby remembered points and draws a faint line to some of them - how near it looks is Reach, how many it connects is Density. One line is barely there; hundreds of them overlapping build the soft, sketchy texture. Because the memory sticks around, a new stroke reaches back toward everywhere you drew before.

This is the idea behind Harmony: the magic isn't the line under the cursor, it's the swarm of faint connections between remembered points.

The connecting settings

In a connecting brush's settings, the controls are split into two groups, each with its own presets.

Connection where

Connection lines always land on the connection layer - the layer marked with the link icon in the Layers panel. Move that marker to send the web to a different layer. Whether to connect at all is the Connect to stroke or map? setting below (None turns it off).

Memory Map From: The map whose neighbours are searched (where lines are pulled from).
Memory Map trail: The map this stroke's points are written to. No trail draws connections without recording anything.
Connect to stroke or map?: Both - connect to old points and this stroke. Stroke - only this stroke's own points. Map - only points that existed before this stroke. None - don't connect at all.

Preset: Classic (current map · both) and No connect (no trail · none).

Connection art style how

Pick a preset, then nudge the few core dials; the rest live under More.

The core dials:

Weight: How bold the mark is - each connection is drawn as this many thin 1px hairs. More hairs = heavier, but never one fat line. 1 = a single delicate line.
Spread: How wide (px) the hairs fan out. Narrow + high Weight = a dense bold mark; wide = an airy band.
Opacity: Per-line opacity. Low values let many lines build into soft shading; high looks like ink.
Density: Chance each eligible neighbour gets a line. Higher = denser (and heavier).
Reach: How far to look for neighbours to connect - larger spans bigger gaps.

Under More:

Fade: Fade each line with its length: 0 = even; 1 = long lines vanish. High Fade gives the Shading style its distance-shaded tone.
Scatter: Jitter the hairs' ends: 0 = a neat parallel band, 1 = loose crossing hairs (hand-drawn).
Speed: Link weight to stroke speed: slow, deliberate passes build richer; fast flicks stay light. 0 = off.
Min length: Skip connections shorter than this, avoiding clumps near each point.
Inset: Trim both ends of every line so it floats between points - the airy web look.
Line shape: Straight, a bulging arc, or a smooth curve.
Dash: Solid, dashed or dotted.
Color: Draw in the main or secondary toolbar color.

Presets: Classic (faint, inset, sketchy), Web (sparser, stronger), Arc (opaque curved arcs).

Try this Trace a shape with the Invisible brush first (it only feeds the memory, no ink), then draw over it with Round - watch the web pull toward your hidden guide. For a soft Harmony look reach for low opacity + a little inset; for crisp ink use high opacity + zero inset. Start from a preset, then nudge one dial at a time.