Shaper Origin team has done a remarkable job delivering within 1 month of schedule.
They just put out a great series on “how to use your machine” AHEAD of delivery. (https://shapertools.com/tutorials/)
They are also providing a Fusion 360 plug-in to export faces of your design. (https://support.shapertools.com/hc/en-us/articles/115003071253-Installing-the-Shaper-Utilities-app)
I really hope that GF team will do the same thing!
Shaper Origin has been around for almost 10 years haven’t they ?
Not sure I would call it ahead of schedule.
Not sure where you got your info from.
They started from MIT in 2011.
Scroll to the bottom of the “about” page.
The crowd fund started last year.
That would be very helpful and might extend the range of their target audience; however, it could be seen also as a deviation from their planned strategy for revenue. Folks who choose not to or can not come up with original designs just need a catalog of ready-to-go designs, ready-to-go-materials and a print button. Keurig/Nespresso strategy.
I do think that it would be worth their while to get something like this going. Partner with Autodesk or OnShape to have Glowforge specific training vids. Trouble is that up to this point, and most likely for some time, feature set is in flux and information given today is irrelevant tomorrow. That certainly would not look good for Autodesk and others.
Lots of robust discussion on demos and training vids and such for the first year of the forum. Lots of that discussion concluded that no one should invest too much time in these videos because they would rapidly be irrelevant.
It’s a tough issue. But yes, one video like this could be a great onramp.
That’s the key - the GFUI is changing so much that anything done this month is likely to be eclipsed by change next month. Even if the new features are additive (like dragging & dropping a supported file onto the GFUI in a project) and not disruptive (changing the power/speed structure), the old videos have to be scrubbed to see if someone said “it does this but not this” and now the “not this” is supported, the other vid needs to be redone as well.
OK. I suppose things are changing constantly, but that doesn’t mean they have to be totally unorganized and rely on Jules or the unpaid staff to interpret what is just puked out to us. All of the “official” information on the operation of the unit should be available in some kind of web page. These “tech notes” need to explain all of the current knowledge around any particular feature and should be updated as soon as it is added or modified. The “jumble” of notes buried in the FORUM on releases, changes, and more changes, and the notes from the unpaid super-user staff tucked here and there seems a bit ridiculous. This is the “final” product being shipped now. We aren’t in beta machine status anymore. Things need to clearly defined what every current feature, button color, 3d engraving option, etc is supposed to do. Examples of how to do it right… from Glowforge.
I agree with that 100%. Videos are cake & cookies on top of that. But even if it were just a running list of the changes & updates with a one-liner I’d be happy. The What’s New is an okay start but new people will always be joining halfway through the movie and there’s no consolidated list - you’ve got to pick thru the individual posts. Rather have a link from the GFUI for it.
Absolutely… Again I point back to how well the SO team seems to be organized. They are a START-UP company too. But they have very organized system of release notes, detailing problems and solutions.