Glowforge Cloud Service

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I’m not too sure if there was a thread talking about how the Cloud service works for Glowforge. I tried searching it up but there is far too many things… haha

But I was just curious on how it works? Does that mean our personal designs cannot be done unless it is on the cloud service or whatever?

If there is a link to this chat please do send it :slight_smile:

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With the standard firmware, I.e., no hacks, your design file is sent from your device to the GF cloud where the cutting and cooling plan are calculated and then sent to your GF, and the user hits start button to initiate the project.

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Your question can be interpreted a couple ways.

1st interpetation: The GF has no capability to laser without the Cloud S/W. Nothing happens.

2nd interpretation: Unless you are doing something extremely simple, like using the trace function, all of the design work is done by you on your own computer, with your own S/W. The GF interface, as we understand it, will have no image or design manipulation capabilities beyond possibly rotate, zoom, position, laser depth control, etc. The user interface is where you upload something you have finished and properly adjusted to match the laser capabilities. The cloud S/W may have many special cool capabilities but it’s primary function is just to convert your uploaded image to something the laser understands. and then control the device.

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Here is a link to another topic to read through to get a fairly good introduction to the process and what using the cloud entails. To sum up some of the points as I understand it:

  1. Our own designs will be kept private unless we want to share them.
  2. You need an active internet connection to use the Glowforge
  3. There will be designs available for free and for pay from Glowforge and the community.
  4. The cloud infrastructure is such that it will scale to handle any workload thrown at it.
  5. The cloud part of the Glowforge is a great plus because it means that Glowforge doesn’t have to write software for multiple computer architectures. This makes updates easier and faster to roll out, among other plus points.
  6. The cloud part of the Glowforge has potential downsides in that internet access is necessary and folks will have to factor this in to the workflow.
  7. Another downside of the cloud aspect is that there is the possibility of with a future sale of the company, or heaven forbid the company goes away, the servers will be turned off and the operational software will no longer function. That is when the Glowforge user community would kick in and resurrect the hardware with some new software.
    That’s just a few of the things I can think of that have been hashed over and over in the forums.
    Will the designs input to the Glowforge be stored on the Cloud?
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Ahh i see! Many thanks for the help! ^^

@jbmanning5 @rpegg @marmak3261

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