# Create an Empty Project

The first step to create an AlignPlus project is to create an empty AlignPlus project:

1. Type "Designer" in command window and select the suggested Cognex Designer application.

2. In the opened dialog, click "New Project" icon, an new dialog will pop up for you to confirm project name and its path.

3. In the pop-up dialog, input a project name and choose a path for it (the default path is "C:\Users\<UserName>\Cognex Designer\Projects"). Keep the default project type as "Blank Project" and the default Plugins as default as "AlignPlus", click "Accept" button to confirm. After this, Designer will run a process to create the empty project.

4. A empty AlignPlus project has no difference with other empty Designer projects except that it has AlignPlus plugins added.

After the empty AlignPlus project is created, Configuration Wizard then can be used to generate the contents of the project based on user's configuration.