Fusion360 to Glowforge

When it gets accepted, you ought to copy that last post of yours and start a new topic with the details. More visibility, easier to find, etc.

Nice job!

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@jbmanning5 - will do, I think @Secret_Sauce is also going to make a video showing how it works as well. I might do one as well, well see.

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Stock point location issues solved. You can use any stock point now but you need to get the Z orientation right. If your SVG comes out upside down there is now an option in the post to “Flip Model” which will fix it. Its because your Z Axis is inverted.

I just had to write this comment:

/*
 * Compensate for Stock Point, SVG Origin, Z axis orientation and margins
 *
 * The *correct* stock point to select is the lower left corner and the right Z axis orientation is pointing up from the stock towards the laser.
 * But to make the learning curve a little gentler we will compensate if you didnt do that.
 *
 * Stock Point Compensation: 
 * First, any stock point will produce the same image, here we correct for the stock point with a translation of the entire SVG contents
 * in x and y. We want to use the extents of the X and Y axes. Normally X comes from the lower right corner ofthe stock and Y from the 
 * upper left (assuming a CAM origin in the lower left corner).
 *
 * Y Axis in SVG vs CAM: 
 * If we do nothing the image would be upside down because in SVG the Y origin is at the TOP of the image (see https://www.w3.org/TR/SVG/coords.html#InitialCoordinateSystem).
 * So normally the Y axis must be flipped to compensate for this by scaling it to -1.
 * 
 * Incorrect Z Axis Orientation:
 * If the user has the Z axis pointing into the stock the SVG image will be upside down (flipped in Y, twice!). This is annoying and is not obvious to fix
 * because X and Y look right in the UI. So the "Flip Model" parameter is provided and does *magic* by turning off the default Y flipping. Now the Y axis is only flipped once
 * like we need for the SVG origin. But the *lower* box point has to be used to get the Y extent in this case because the *CAM* is upside down (CAM origin is top left corner).
 * Unfortunatly the stock point selection changes the ratio between Y values in the upper and lower stock points, so its impossible to detect this without assuming a stock point.
 * So this is as good as we can do.
 *
 * Margins:
 * Add 1 magin width to these numbers so the image is centred.
 */
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This is so great, thank you for doing it!

FWIW, there at least used to be some weird limitations and issues with SVG transformations that tripped up the Glowforge software (e.g. I think I’ve isolated one cause of “We’re sorry, an error occurred while preparing this print”). It doesn’t look like your code exercises any of the transforms-of-death, but I thought I should mention this in case you run into similar weirdness at some point.

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I thought those were mostly fixed but I wonder if that’s a part of the problem @polarbrainfreeze is having with the Inkscape connector function. I noticed in the code it’s using a transform for at least some components.

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Any bug reports? Success stories?

I was throwing together a quick power settings test by copying a CAM op and I saw some strange re-ordering in the Glowforge UI of the ops that I created. They worked fine but were out of order from what they were in Fusion 360. This needs more investigation.

I also experimented with trying to explain “score” cuts to Glowforge but there doesn’t seem to be a way to do this thats officialy supported. Dashed lines seems like the most obvious way to do it but those just produce an error in Glowforge app.

This post explains the ordering behavior: Custom Inkscape, Illustrator, CorelDraw and Affinity Designer Color Palettes for ordering operations in GFUI

So we cant force a color order to put dissimilar colors close together :slightly_frowning_face:. I added a color sorter function so you can customize the POST with your own colors and they will be sorted and work correctly without having to do it manually.

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That is a magic incantation for sure that would help if were revealed. I don’t know if anyone has published a hack to call a default score.

And although I use OnShape instead of Fusion, your work on the SVG post processing is greatly appreciated, especially that color ordering addition. That is very helpful.

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Just an update, I’m pretty busy (its summer and nice outside!). But we are closing in on a final POST:

  • ‘Center in Machine Workspace’ (was ‘use WCS’ == false) is making a comeback an an option. It needs some tweaking though. Centering of prints larger than the workspace is untested and if that happens I would like to print a border in the SVG as a warning so you are alerted to the issue.
  • More colors! The post now creates new colors as needed by alpha blending the core 15 color pallet towards white in even steps. Want to do a power/speed test with 50+ ops? No problem.
  • Unit Testing: I’ll be working on a set of tests that run in a web page that emulated the Fusion CAM subsystem. It will render a bunch of pretty SVGs. This will test all 9 selectable stock points, large numbers of colors, engrave vs cut, centering etc. The code POST needs to be made property re-entrant to enable this. This should find any bugs lurking in the javascript.
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We have shaken most of the bugs out now. There was a really nasty one with inch units that refused to die. I’ve moved the development to a full Github repo so I could add Unit Tests. https://github.com/garethky/glowforge-colorific-fusion360-post

The unit tests render in a web page with a bunch of SVG’s embedded in it. Each one is a run of the POST using a mock CAM driver. Test include things like: all possible configurations of auto stock correction, inch to metric conversion, up to 1K ops with auto generated colors etc.

Try it out and let me know what you think!

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@gareth has absolutely killed it and the post is working great! What an upgrade this will be. I am about to start recording a video showing how to use it. Will post it asap! Great job @gareth!

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That’s awesome, much thanks goes out to the both of you @Secret_Sauce @gareth . Cant’ wait to see the vid.

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Hello Everyone!

I recorded a video earlier today that explains everything you need to know (hopefully) about the post processor. It can be found here: Glowforge Colorific Post Processor for Fusion 360 - Everything You Need to Know!

Hope you all find it helpful!

Again, shout out to @gareth for making this possible.

Warmly,
Jason

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Great job on the POST @gareth, I just linked @Secret_Sauce’s tutorial on it in the Matrix. :grinning::+1:

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If you are testing this out, please let us know if you see bugs or unexpected behaviour. I am very capable of writing bugs, just ask @Secret_Sauce! :sweat_smile: GitHub has a bug reporting tool: new issue. Posting them publicly means we can all see what the issue is. You won’t hurt my feelings, this is just a hobby for me. :grin:

Also if you are using your Glowforge for production work (making the same design multiple times) we want to hear how the options in the post work for you. Particularly if you are doing anything like, say, fixtures to position materials on the bed repeatedly. In that case I don’t know if centering is going to work for you. @Secret_Sauce did a great job on the video and he shows how to use the stock size and offsets to position the cuts within the Glowforge bed. We would like to know if this works for your use-case.

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Anyone try the new post processor and have feedback?

Chuckle! I installed it, took it for a test drive, and promptly got lost trying to find the screen shots shown in your video…I don’t do post processing work so finding things was taking a little longer than I had time for.

Looks like a big time saver for those who understand Fusion a little better though. I need to rewatch your tutorial a couple of times…kept getting stuck on the setup/post process part.

I’ve tried it, pretty happy so far. I haven’t run into any issues but then again I haven’t done that many projects. Once I figured out how to setup the tool path everything else was great.

I tried it and have had no problems with it so far. The kerf compensation is just fantastic. After carefully measuring the kerf in my material using the kerf measuring jig I made a new laser cutting tool in my user library, did the tool-path thing and ran post. The results were spot on – all the dimensions were exactly per the design.

Thanks very much for this Gareth! (Looking forward to seeing it get built into in Fusion 360.)

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