The photo engrave I ran of your kids is deeper in the darker areas than it is in the lighter areas. If I had run a second or third pass, it would have had an even more pronounced effect.
I’m going to play with this one of these days…but for the time being, just try rasterizing the vector image and see how it works. It’s going to give you some 3D effect. 
I know. I’m not explaining myself well. I realize that, as in the photo, there is some variance to the depth, based on shade. But it’s almost non-existent… not even remotely resembling “the 3D engrave” or the depth of engrave I’ve been able to produce from a vector object (like the heart above).
Just got through discussing with @karaelena and @henryhbk on another thread and apparently that depth engraving function you’re looking for has not been enabled yet.
(I honestly thought we were getting it with the grayscale engraves, but apparently not.)
The rasterizing is a work around. Try running a second pass for now if you want to get a depth effect…it might let you do a little sculpting.
Thanks. I can try that. But I don’t want to go through the effort of designing something if I’m just going to end up having to re-design it “the right way” later on.
Snag some of the depth maps from the free designs sections and see what you come up with.
This way you’re not investing time, and those files have all 0-256 shade values in them so you can get a good test.
The email I received yesterday for confirmation says 3D engraving is done. Wonder if they just havent turned it on in the UI yet… Or maybe these emails really are tailored specifically to the user and I’m speshul? Nah, doubt it. 
We dialled up the resolution 35% higher than our specification to 1,335 DPI.
More like “we picked an odd belt and pulley combination that does not allow 1000 DPI”.
I think it has to be 1354.66666667 or 677.33333333 but they seem to label 677 as 655.
It’s a bit academic anyway when the spot is about 1/127".
It does depth work with multiple passes, and photos do engrave at 1335 lpi, and it looks fantastic.
I suspect they still have a few improvements up their sleeve in store for us though…which I’m perfectly okay with! Chuckle!
Are you actually complaining that it ended up being better than advertised? Regardless the means? What the duce?
I have only seen that engraving seems to get worse above about 300 LPI so I don’t think it is any advantage being 35% more than 1000LPI.
Yes you can run multiple passes of anything but I haven’t seen it automatically do that while engraving yet.
Thanks. Yeah… I thought of that at first and then kinda went… "Wait… If I just do 0 (black) that tells me everything I want to know. And it did, but it’s not the answer I was looking for.
So far all I’ve been able to squeeze out of the 3D Engrave menu is something like “This only works on grayscale bitmaps.” and then you load a grayscale bitmap and it says something like “There are no 3D engrave settings for this Proofgrade material.”
OOL, but want to confirm that I appreciate the communication technique of sarcasm! No need to be mean, but there are times when a bit of snark is entirely appropriate.
And unfortunately, the block feature does not work as a mute button. I’ve tried it 
@palmercr - I don’t hate you and I’m genuinely not out to antagonize you … but you absolutely must stop with the constant negativity and trolling already! You’re not “just being critical” or “asking tough questions” (both of which are acceptable, if they’re done respectfully). You’re heckling @dan at every turn, to the point of being obnoxious. It’s making the forum unpleasant for so many. Please stop.
no, he’s really not. he’s just an engineer with different priorities. i have a lot of engineering friends, and many, many of them are like this. clearly not everyone, but i don’t see him as trolling at all. in fact, i suspect he reacts with much less emotion than a lot of people do in this forum, including me.
i have felt unwelcome on more than one occasion from this forum simply because a lot of people who tend to be cheerleaders - which is fine, it’s not my thing, but it’s totally valid - get so upset at what they perceive as ‘negative attacks’ when in reality they aren’t ‘attacks’ at all.
I’m genuinely sorry to hear that you’ve felt unwelcome here for speaking candidly. FWIW, I do not see myself as a cheerleader and I don’t begrudge anyone being direct or critical. I’ve done so in this forum myself, and it strikes me as perfectly fair and appropriate for folks to ask hard questions and express their frustrations given the amount of money that we’ve spent and the delays that we’ve encountered.
Obviously, the statements above are my opinions - I don’t pretend to speak for the whole forum. And for the most part, I try to avoid “tone policing” or whatever you call it … but this one individual has taken it to an extreme and it does wear thin. Look at how many have called him out today alone, and then think about who those people are - many have been quite critical themselves, so they’re not just emo cheerleaders. Given that repeated response from such a variety of personalities, I’m going to go out on a limb and say that I’m not alone in seeing this behavior as trolling.
critical to different degrees, perhaps. and i didn’t say emo anywhere; there’s no need to minimize my argument by adding extra words.
sometimes negative criticism is not just warranted, but necessary. i mean, without negative criticism we’d still be shipping 3 foot lasers internationally to get the tubes replaced - and that’s something that most domestic users have no problem with (for good reason, shipping’s cheap).
i get that his opinions make you feel bad, but i mean it’s easy enough to skip past them - the vast majority of the time he isn’t even responding to other users when he’s being critical, just concepts or the laser itself. just skip past them if they bother you that much.
honestly, if you guys think this stuff is trolling, you aren’t on the internet that much. these are serious questions - people here think it’s trolling simply because the issues aren’t important to them. for people to whom the issues are important, i think you’ll get a different response.
it most definitely gets better. I did a number of tests at makerfaire regarding this. This is a .35" flower of life that someone had me make for them. Its really tiny. It wouldnt come out at 340, so I did it at 1355 instead. came out great
@Tom_A, it seems like you are working out different processes or techniques here. Photoengraving is yes a bitmap that has gradients, but you are wanting a different surface color with the engrave. 3D engraving isn’t as much concerned with surface color, although that can figure into the depth illusion, but the variation of the depth left in the material engraved.
I’m trying to get a handle on a response to YOUR NEEDS and how to assist you.
and as an aside: I do appreciate your participation @palmercr, but your comments tend to be about getting your technical needs fulfilled rather than being helpful to the topic as it is posted. I have a great respect for your point of view and tenacious attention to detail, but they can be a bit offputting and get in the way of following an original topic.
I know I am guilty about talking about my needs before answering for another’s needs too. Best way might be to start new topics about the technical aspects of why or why not the Glowforge does it this way.
My Latin teacher said whenever someone asked him, “Why does Latin do it this way?” Don’t ask why, just ask how, and do it. I think you are right in looking for a little more info about how and why the Glowforge technically does something. But that doesn’t seem to be what concerns many folks.
That came off as patronizing. Was that your intent?
I agree, and have said the same myself. Look back at the announcement about the tubes - I didn’t hold back on my opinion there, and I’d like to believe that my comments (along with those from many other angry buyers) helped to prompt the quick resolution that we saw on that issue.
You seem to want to pigeonhole me as being emotional or a yes man, when that’s not really accurate. I appreciate the critics (I’ve been one myself) and I do understand that different users will have different concerns. However, when every other comment implies that the CEO and/or the company are being deceptive, dishonest or just plain stupid, it goes beyond “criticism” or just “being a logical thinker” and becomes rude and inappropriate.
nowhere did i say that. i’m responding to your post where you insist that someone else stop posting simply because you dislike the content.
this is blatantly false, just look at his activity:
and some of those wouldn’t even be posts if he didn’t feel the need to defend himself. i get it, he’s a critical poster. that’s his right, he paid just as much money as you, more so considering shipping. if glowforge decides that it gets to be too much, they can say something or cut off access - that’s their prerogative.
i’m simply responding to your statement about how this one poster is somehow singlehandedly making the forum unpleasant for “so many.” frankly i’ll take a hundred of palmercr’s posts over another one demanding more money for this delay.
