I join heartily in the rejoicing. Not only info, but satisfactory info.
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Thank you so much @dan!
That is exactly what we on the waiting list look to feed on.
Excitement renewed!
Reporting the setbacks the team experiences is just as helpful to us, giving us examples of the issues you have to contend with in development of this awesome machine.
"Can you make this not suck?"
The technology has been around for decades, but has progressed little since its inception. The elements Glowforge is encorporating in its design stand to revolutionize the industry and greatly expand the customer base the technology is available to. (As evidenced by my participation)
Lowering the bar from where only those with a technical background and bags of money could participate, to the price point and ease of use Glowforge will provide is what inspired us to throw money in your face.
I think I speak for all of us in expressing appreciation for the small details Regarding development, it helps appease our restless enthusiasm - and thank you for bringing this opportunity within our reach!
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Hey @dan, curious about that stone tile engraving. Does the software help you snap your design to center/side on whatever you are engraving?
I thought about this question for some time. It sounds like you would like the S/W to snap the design to the image of material inside the Glowforge. I find using snapping is very beneficial when using vector or modeling S/W but can’t quite translate that in my head to the practice of actually using the laser cutter. One problem I see is that the shape of the material might be square, circular, oblong, irregular, etc. and the orientation could be arbitrary. What would you snap to? The edge or center of a piece of scrap material is not all that useful. Snapping might get you close to where you want to be but then the fine tuning would need to be done manually. Yes, I know there are likely specialized use case where this capability could save a few seconds in setup. I would think it will be some time before the company can focus on special cases.
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That was actually the first thing I thought as well. I would have like center alignment. Even if not from an auto-detected shape, at least allow me to draw a shape and make sure that the text is center aligned to what was drawn. This coaster is the perfect example. I would want to make sure what I was cutting was perfectly aligned.
@rpegg I think @areader154 meant ‘alignment’. I dont think this is a special case however, it would be pretty important to have a way to make sure whatever text or other engravings were centered properly.
I just dragged it to the center on-screen by eye. It worked perfectly.
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Ya, would be nice to be able to perhaps add some guides to the image taken from the glowforge camera that we could align artwork to.
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This brings up a question for me. Will I be able to “zoom in” on screen to make it as eyeball accurate as possible? I will only have one chance to get it right on some of my projects.
There is currently a +/- magnifying glass on the project page. It’s such a basic need that you are probably safe to assume yes. How much magnification and control, and whether the hi-res camera is used for that function is a bigger unknown.
2x zoom now, likely more later.
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So my assumption here was that you could type text directly into the glowforge application (like you can in easel for the x-carve). This would mean that it would be acting as some sort of editing suite, where in reality it looks like it might be for just arranging imported graphics made in other programs. This made me realize that I know even less about the glowforge software than I originally thought, haha.
Maybe I missed something. Have it been stated anywhere what the intended capabilities and/or scope of the glowforge application is going to be?
If it is only going to be for arranging what has been made in other software I could see some necessity for the API to be able to provide the images taken with the camera to whatever plugin is being used. This would allow for the user to use that image to properly edit and align whatever they are printing in this 3rd party software, then shoot it back over to the glowforge app for printing. Is this the workflow process you guys are shooting for @dan?
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From what I have seen and heard from @dan, the interface is going to be akin to a print preview where you can scale, (rotate?) and drag the image around the material for placement, but my speculation is no other input to the image inside the app.
Thanks for the update Dan. GO TEAM!
As far as centering. I don’t think I need a snap feature but a simple ruler function would be great. Draw a line from here to here and it’s 3 inches. Do the same on the other side… etc. I know there might be some depth variance but as a comparator it would be great.
Or perhaps and overlay grid?
Just some thoughts… keep up the good work!
So I have read through all of that but… did the test units get shipped out? are they working ok? has feedback been good or bad? These few questions being answered would really help set my expectations.
I expect the beta program is pretty locked down regarding publicizing operational results.
Besides fanning the flames of dissension across social media (negative advertising) the features that the forge brings are serious innovations, and providing competition with those results would effectively give them a leg up on the research they would need to perform in order to copy it.
There is a great book, “They Made America - from the Steam engine to the search engine” by Harold Evans, that chronicles major innovations in industry.
Without exception, the innovators spent a good portion of their fortunes and remaining lives defending against intellectual theft.
Look at the turmoil artists have to contend with regarding that.
The silence is by design, out of necessity.
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@dan
Thanks so much for posting this! I have done several etching projects by hand with my dremmel tool and am glad to see I can get the same result from the glowforge.
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@dan says that there are no “public” beta units… that doesn’t mean there are no private beta units out there being used and evaluated.
He still says that all preorders (ordered before Oct 25) will go out by the end of June…
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Dan,
this is really neat, but I was noticing the extensive use on the printer.
Is the cell structure below going to be offered on the website as a consumable? Or will there be a link to a location were we can get it or something similar? I anticipate using the heck out of the laser and may need one fairly quickly.