After a few weeks and not a massive number of prints, I’ve come up with my top Features list… Sorry in advance if these are all duplicates! One of the GF responses was to post them anyway and they’ll end up in the hopper if they are any good.
Manual for the App (10)
Is there a manual for the App? Seems to be guesswork largely to work out how to use it? Online is fine obviously as it’s changing at the mo. Read only link to a google doc would be awesome!
Metric settings please(8)
I’m a mm guy. I don’t even have tools to measure inches, so I need google open the whole time I’m in the interface.
Dimensions on elements(8)
Need to see actual size (in chosen units) of design elements. I want to be able to resize a circle to 100mm for example and know that the GF will cut a 100mm circle (kerf TBC).
Naming Elements(7)
I recently made a part that had 5 concentric rings with cuts engraves and scores. It was a pain in the bum working out which was which even with the highlight.If they could be named, that would be great. Inkscape supports naming elements so the SVG standard allows for it - the interface just needs to suck them in…
Resize without aspect lock(7)
Would like to resize designs without the X/Y ratio lock. this would be awesome with primitves at 13. it seems overkill to start inkscape just to change the dims of a rectangle or flatten a circle…
Decouple design elements(5)
Drag design elements around one loaded… Sometimes this works by double clicking and sometimes not - I have no idea how the interface decides this…|
Materials library(4) I get that you want to push the proofgrade materials to give you a sustainable income - I get that clearly. I don’t blame you , they are awesome and generally painless. But please don’t screw the inteface up for people not using them. I should be able to set my own material types and store 'em.
Laser Settings persistence(3) When I change an element from a cut or engrave or score to an ignore, and then back again for the next part, it should retain the previous settings for speed and power rather than back to defaults. Workflow is often to turn of certain parts of a design for one print so constantly juggling numbers is an pain.
Onscreen dims when resizing(3)
Dimensions of the design onscreen would be great
Glowforge Post print pictures(3)
GF takes pictures of the finished print. Can these be made available via the interface to the GF owner? I have software called octopi for my 3d printer and the finished print pictures are really useful.|
Extraction Fan speed adjust(2)
Some things don’t produce many fumes - for example tile engraving. it would be great to have control of the blower to allow for mor interesting usecases (unless they are needed for cooling the laser)
Print time (1) Get an estimate before and then a countdown - don’t know how log it took. Relevant becaue I factor laser time into item cost so actual time wqould be very useful.
Primitives built in(1)
Basic primitives - square, circle, triangle would be really useful, especially if the aspect ratio can be changed
I’ve seen similar comments before - I’m puzzled though. There’s only 1 place you need inches (if you’re not using PG) for material height. There’s another if you’re overriding the focus point but that’s not required as it will take the material height or the actual height it calculates when it scans the material.
If I enter a value 99% of the time it’s the same value in each of the operations where I’m overriding the focus.
I get students in my CNC & laser classes saying the same thing about metric But that’s mostly because of toolpathing setup and varying carving depths but after a bit they don’t seem to notice it a bit.
Nice list! Some of them are repeats, which is great! Glowforge tracks how many independent requests come in, so the more repeats, the greater chance the request will move up the list.
Decouple design elements
What I’ve noticed is that if elements are touching in inkscape, then they will be 1 shape in the GFUI, even if they are different colors or layers. Just my observations.
You are spot on - Early doors I didn’t use any proofgrade: I treated the samples as a precious resource. Every new thing I cut needed measuring and yes, it was thickness plus focus. PG makes it easier, for sure but then I do want to see dimensions on elements as it easy to accidentally risize them.
Before posting, I found a list with a GF comment noting not to worry about duplicates - they’ll worry about that. So regardless of whether they priotize, they get to see the most requested features. I’ve even scored mine although I suspect that scoring depends on what I’m trying to do with the GF on any given day.
Sure. Unfortunate that that reads to me like he’s saying they kind of only really care when there’s a problem, not so much when we all want the same feature(s). I often wonder if they ever bother saying “Oh, look… 500 people have requested that feature. We should implement it.” Or if they end up saying “Oh, look… 500 people have requested that feature. Too bad we never intended to do that and we’re not going to do it now.”
Definitely. I usually focus acrylic engraves at .5" as it smooths the engrave - no lines or striations. It’s similar to soft-focus photos.
I also de-focus when scoring where I want a thick line but don’t want to engrave it since scores are way faster but typically the lines are thin.
I’ll focus deeper in the middle of the material if I’m doing a second pass to cut through thick (1/2") material. The first cut opens the kerf and the second focuses in the middle for the bottom of the cut.
But de-focusing is an advanced technique Most folks are happy to get cuts & engraved with default settings.
I agree with the list. Perhaps we can have a special place for them so we can vote for features?
I would also add the option to align features to a line or to each other. I mostly cut multiple small items at once and when able to align them nicely I can have less unusable remaining material.
Thanks for the suggestions! I’ve already shared them with the team.
Your Glowforge comes with a detailed manual to help you learn to use it easily and quickly. You can find the manual here: https://glowforge.com/manual.
I’d also like to refer you to this tutorial made by @jules
In particular, there is a section “Important notes about Selecting Objects on the board” that has information about drag groups that might address some of your questions.
I’m going to close this thread - if you have any other suggestions, go ahead and post a new topic, and thanks again.
But that’s mostly because of toolpathing setup and varying carving depths but after a bit they don’t seem to notice it a bit.