Glowforge Scan to Cut/Engrave Function - Vector? or Gcode Only?

@dan Question for you - When the GF scans the surface of the object for a image then makes a raster of it so it can engrave or cut- What happens to that data? Is it stored as a repeatable ‘action’? (aka gcode) or is it stored as a vector? Or stored in a proprietary GF format?

Would it be possible to take that raster (or maybe vector) that the GF scans- then export that back out to a desktop publishing app i.e. illustrator as a vector (SVG or EPS) ?

Also, Can you give a brief overview on how the plugin will work? Will there be an option to specify cut, engrave & rasters by defining colors or layers?

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At some point it needs to be gcode. Would be really awesome if we had access to that code; however, gcode comes in many flavors and depending on the post-processing done for the GF it might not be a direct drop-in for other machines.

A workaround but someone else had mentioned using the Adobe Shape app (I think that’s what it’s called). Basically you take a picture of your design and it converts it to vector (live trace in a sense). Then you can bring it on to your computer.

It’s stored as a print that you can repeat, stretch, shrink, whatever in the Glowforge UI. At the moment it’s not exportable. If you wanted to, you could flatbed-scan the material, then mess around with it, upload it to Glowforge, and position it over the top of the material. Would that suit your need?

Right now we scan B&W only, no greyscale or color, but may experiment with that over time.

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@dan Ah Okay

Can you talk about now the plugin will work with-in 3rd party vector apps? Or maybe show it in action? I know there was a video of someone making a coaster- but that was more of a open pre-made design then ‘print’. I’d like to see the workflow of someone actually creating something in AI then specifying whats a cut, engrave etc…

That actually was someone creating in AI. He just took his existing logo, drew a line around it, and used the GF plugin to specify engrave or cut. It looked too easy to be a true custom design, but it was!

Okay.

But I am talking in more detailed. Then file > open, load image and then file > plugin. The clicking print/cut.