I would find it super helpful to have a dedicated channel in the forum for discussing Catalog designs,. Lately, I have been test printing a lot of them (particularly more complicated/intricate/multipiece designs). I’d love to share my thoughts and feedback about them, in hopes of helping people who want to print in the future, and also to perhaps help GF optimize the design.
Are others interested in this, also? It feels different than the purpose for the catalog designs that show up in Made on a GlowForge. Those are intended to show off your makes - although some do discuss their process. What I’m hoping for is an area to discuss points of strength and weakness in catalog designs, to both inspire and assist others who want to print them.
The only thing I think you can do so far is exactly what you’ve already done. Since this is everything else, and you’ve tagged it with catalog, this can be a thread dedicated to that.
Unfortunately, it might get messy with discussing all the catalog designs here…but I don’t really know of another way to create a separate discussion area besides making a new thread for each. As far as I know, we cannot create any main topics for the forum, we can only figure out where we would like to add to.
I am personally interested in this discussion. Especially since sometimes things get lost in translation from the time we submit catalog designs, to the time they are actually published.
Thanks! I guess what I am asking is whether the community would be interested if the moderators added a new channel. I see a need for this. Does the community agree? If so - perhaps the mods can make that happen. I definitely don’t want this post be become the place to discuss all catalog designs - that would be a horrible mess that would be really challenging to find any real information in.
I don’t even know who the moderators would be, since this is Glowforge’s official forum, and support is no longer on the forum. The only way to suggest it would be to email support. I know there have been minor discussions about trying to get channels created, but since I don’t ever see anything new, I don’t know how successful that’s been.
The forum doesn’t have moderators, per se, but there are a handful of staff that have admin privileges. That being said, GF staff does not monitor any of the topics on a regular basis.
The only way to submit a suggestion is to email Support.
As someone with designs in the Catalog, I’m torn as to whether the channel you’re suggesting would be useful or not, but lean strongly to the latter.
While it would probably be good as a place to ask for help with printing the various designs, it would inevitably end up as a place where users ask (or even demand) that the designers make modifications to the catalog files or ask for free customizations. Ask me how I know.
The thing folks should realize is that once a designer submits their design to GF, they no longer have any control or even influence over what GF does with that file. None. Nada. Zip.
Giving users a place to ask for/demand changes that the designers cannot implement seems like a disaster in the making. Just my opinion, YMMV.
I’ve been posting them with Catalog in the title and tagging with xCatalog (or xCatalogDesigns) - one of those.
If you find an issue with one, then using the Report Design button on the bottom right of the design - or if it’s not there send an email to support@glowforge.com.
FYI, they are unlikely to change anything about a design unless there is an actual error. Your version of “optimized” might be somebody else’s horror story.
So, no I don’t believe we need a category for it - MOAG should do what you want if what you’re offering is “isn’t this cool, this is what I did to make it look like I did” (or BTM if you used non-PG settings to achieve your modifications).
You have a good point. I’ve got the memory of an ant right now. There is only so much testing I can do with different proofgrade and the materials I have before submitting to glowforge, and then they test. Besides where to get the extra materials that work with the files, I don’t know what more can be done after submissions anyways.