Glowforge Trace saving as a .svg file locally

Community Support
1

I think a great feature to add into the Glowforge interface would be the ability to trace an image from the bed and then save that image as an .svg file in the computer. Then I would be able to tweak the trace as needed in illustrator. I would also like the ability to mirror my design in the interface so that I can engrave on the backside of something, like a mirror, without having to take it to an outside app to edit it.

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2

I believe that this has been suggested, probably a billion times…:slight_smile:
But I concur. This is almost a “MUST HAVE”.

Thank goodness my wife has a good scanner so that I can trace things separately…

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Actually unless there has been good changes in how the GFUI works; a real scanner is cheap and much better.
I had been under the impression that we could scan gray-scale and get 3D engraves but last I looked it only did closed vectors that is pretty useless to me most of the time

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I use my phone for scanning artwork as well as irregular objects to great effect, but here’s the pro tip: Use as high a zoom level as possible.

The closer you are to a lens the more distortion you’ll get. I usually put the item on the floor and take a picture while standing. I’m 2m tall, so this gives me good results. Use a chair if needed.

The GF camera is an invaluable addition to the tool, but the resolution isn’t what I want when doing fine editing.

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For my phone using the zoom shuts off the ability to flash and the brighter the illumination the faster the shutter speed; so closer with the flash can be less blurry than farther away with the zoom when any vibration while shooting is also increased.

Just my experience everyone has different abilities and some have tripods.

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If you’re going for a low-distortion image this won’t work with a cell phone camera.

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Is a matter of trade-offs blurry vs wide-angle, Without depth distortion at a couple of feet, vs motion blur, vs cropping smaller all make it worse but balancing one against another unless you can make them all less with professional equipment. Or if a 3d thing you can take dozens of photos and stitch them together and then use any sort of virtual camera you wish.

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That’s a great idea for a feature - thanks for the suggestion! We haven’t announced anything like that yet, but I’m going to send it to our product team with a note that it came from a customer request.

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