Off the top of my head I’d suggest thermal printers for receipts that heat the paper, label printers that emboss plastic strips, and photo printers that expose chemicals to light.
Agreed. When I’m giving talks about the technology, I often explain that Glowforge is in the category of devices properly referred to as CNC laser cutter/engravers. (As traditional 3D printers are properly referred to as CNC fused deposition modeling or stereolithographic additive manufacturing devices… interesting terminology history on wikipedia).
First time I saw a reference to (CNC) lasers and printing, it was a few years back on a screen shot of a software plugin for output that added an option - “print to laser”.
That reference startled me, and I remember thinking “How cool is that!?” To have a laser connected to that output! In a moment of day dreaming, "Man, would I love to have a laser!"
Well, thanks to Glowforge I am about to, and when I joined the forum, my choice of user name was obvious!
Well, I’m still hoping to see more variable-depth engraving to solidify the “3d” aspect of the name, but as far as I understand the word “printing”, the glowforge is, in fact, a printer.
Printing is a process for reproducing text and images using a master form or template.
-wikipedia
and
word history:
n.
c.1300, “impression, mark” (as by a stamp or seal), from Old French preinte “impression,”
mid-14c., prenten “to make an impression” (as with a seal, stamp, etc.),
from print (n.). Meaning “to set a mark on any surface” (including by writing) is attested from late 14c.
-dictionary.com
Off the top of my head I’d suggest thermal printers for receipts that heat the paper, label printers that emboss plastic strips, and photo printers that expose chemicals to light.
yes, although the first 2 are neither additive or subtractive at all… Dye sublimation printers do add dye to the paper… And printing to film one could argue is subtractive (since you essentially are etching the silver away…)
If I remember correctly “print” come from the Latin word “premere” which means “to press”. The French changed “premere” to “preindre”, then to “preinte” where we get “print”.
As Webster is commonly adding new words to the dictionary, even absurd ones, it’s fairly obvious that our vernacular is what we make it. Glowforge is just taking a more traditional approach to this word lol.
I think “embosser” would be a bit more apropos than printer, but as the laser is applying pressure to the material it narrowly fits into the more ancient definition of “print”. It’s about as close as a 3D printer is. It does a little bit of pressing.
Yes, over time terms originally referring to a thing or process are bound to evolve as we do.
Reminds me of that earlier thread…
Waterproof overshoes = rubbers
Cigarettes = fags
Flip flops = thongs
Things have changed!
When you think about it, the Romans wrote most commonly by engraving on wax rather than inking on paper. If printing means putting letters on a surface, then we can reach back and say they were printing using Roman characters and not cursive as developed later. They called it writing (scribere) which emphasized the scribing/scratching nature of what what done. Graphein in Greek is writing or painting (icons are said to be written not painted.) The root is once again indo-european gerb and related to marking, scratching, engraving rather than a process of putting things on. Much of writing for millenia was subtractive rather than additive.
The whole idea of printing as it comes to us in English was via the method of pressing, as @takitus mentions, emphasizing the use of screw presses, the same mechanism and words for pressing olive oil or grapes. It’s not too concerned with the outcome of words, writing, pictures or whatever.
So I think that in the big picture, the whole process, especially in that you tell the computer to use some type of machine or device to leave marks, cut, or otherwise affect the surface or entirety of the material, printing does make sense. Especially because “print” can stand in for both cutting and engraving.
I’m curious why it would need to be on your network? (Not the “The Glowforge needs a network connection?..” question) I’m checking my assumption that machine access would be account managed on the Glowforge cloud side.
In a secure environment this device would not have a wifi it could connect to. A hospital is a covered entity under HIPAA so we have to have total data accountability so because of that all devices using wifi have to be tied to a specific ActiveDirectory account. Now we can request “pseudo-people” as an account, but that makes IT security very, very nervous on devices they don’t directly control (like wireless blood pressure monitors which they configure).
You’re forgetting something… The Glowforge doesn’t require access to your network. Only the internet. As such, it can use the Guest Wireless at the hospital.
Yes - I was just curious as to why henryhbk would need it to be connected to the local network specifically, as opposed to the internet in general. I understand his answer - the HIPAA requirements are not technical requirements.
That was my question, too - local network vs internet. It looks like the overall HIPAA policy/requirements at this institution prohibit this kind of device installation.
