Introducing Snapmark (September 2018)

thanks @jules appreciate the help… You are awesome…

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Just an update - I just turned on my machine and tried it again, with the same results.

Anyone out there have any ideas about what’s happening? I’ve got some stuff I’d like to be making.

I’m having the same problem today. :pensive:

No change to design scaling or Snapmarks positioning. Will not snap to template in machine.

Something is not going right with the Snapmarks function lately.

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A lot of things could be the problem. You probably know them all… Lighting, lid camera dirty, head camera dirty, wrong settings, intermittent connectivity, etc., etc. Obviously I could just be lucky, but to add another data point… Have not had a Snapmark failure in probably 100 uses since before September last year. Worked fine about 10am today for a test and worked fine a few minutes ago. Two different files. That in no way says any problem is within your control. No one can know until the issue is resolved.

My GF is in a basement space so the lighting never changes, my cameras are always clean and my connectivity is extraordinary. Not in terms of speed but because it is NEVER interrupted or intermittent. My ISP and home wireless have been continuous and without connectivity problems since day one of receiving the unit.

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Thanks @rpegg. Fair points for anyone to consider, but I’ve been successfully using Snapmarks since not too long into the beta across varying lighting conditions and lens cleanliness. This use was a very unstrenuous example as well.

  1. Used my standard Snapmarks template. The same one is a starting point for all projects and the SM are erased, if not required. The Snapmarks layer is locked after I adjust them for my template sheet. I only moved them horizontally by nudging. I didn’t move them vertically and certainly didn’t scale them or offset them from each other vertically.
  2. I added my designs.
  3. Saved as SVG.
  4. Imported into GFUI.
  5. Ran job to cut template slots and score Snapmarks. Turned off those items.
  6. Ran print.
  7. Changed design without unlocking SM layers - output SVG - input to GFUI. Run SM search routine.
  8. Snapmarks error. Template hasn’t been moved on crumb tray. SM are dark (I use @Jules Amazon box cardboard settings). I cleaned lenses…no change.
  9. Started from step 4 again with a fresh template sheet and same end result.
  10. …and again.

Oh, …and I had the same issue where the gantry didn’t even move to look for the marks, whereas it had worked this morning.

I would seek further on my machine for a cause, but then I found that others are seeing the same thing. So I think it’s worth checking out at the mothership.

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The head banging? Or the not recognizing the Snapmarks?

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:stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye: The hanging my head in frustration. Snapmarks is an amazing tool and thrilled to have it. As with most life-enriching capabilities that the Glowforge has given us, when they malfunction, it’s a blow to the workflow.

I’ve had my share of false alarms, such as my magnets stopping my air-assist fan, but this one doesn’t make sense yet.

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I have had my GlowForge since December 2018 and learned to use it fairly quickly because of my experience with other lasers at community makerspaces. I had heard about Snapmarks but not looked into them until I had a project where I thought they might be useful. Scanning through this archive was both disheartening and time-consuming.

Repeatable precision alignment is a daunting technical challenge, especially since the distance between the surface of the material and the camera is variable (aka - we cut things that are different thicknesses). I certainly don’t have the programming/engineering expertise to make suggestions on improving the issue, but do have some recommendations for this board:

  1. Create a new category for the Snapmark beta instead of having a single post in the Everything Else category. The post has gotten too long and with a beta project that is constantly changing, a lot of the material from the start of the post is outdated.

  2. Create a specific post at the top for a status report. This would be read-only to users and would only be for updates to the status. This would give GF somewhere to note when they tweak the existing software so that users can identify if the tweak might have caused new problems. You could also announce when new rounds of Snapmark users are going to be added, the types of issues being found and addressed, etc.

  3. Create specific Feedback posts for current Snapmark users to post their experiences. If technically possible, only those with Snapmark enabled would be able to post here. For those of us without Snapmarks we could see what kinds of issues are being dealt with, but keeps us out of the weeds and flame-ups. You can close these periodically and open new ones to control the size of the posting or could separate out comments between major/minor software upgrades.

  4. Create specific posting for the rest of us to provide feedback. There will be a lot of posts about how much we all want Snapmarks rolled out NOW and how unfair it is that other users can do such great things with them while the rest of us can’t use this nifty new feature. Mostly it gives everyone a place to vent without mixing it into the feedback and update postings.

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Still
No
Snapmarks…
:frowning:

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Hello, how are Snapmarks rolling out, I still do not have access to them, is there a way to opt in? Thank you.

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They’re a beta test, rolled out randomly. Asking for them doesn’t do any good; you just have to wait and hope. Sorry!

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GAWD, I would LOVE, LOVE , LOVE to get Snapmarks!!! I am wasting more material than I like without it, anyway I can be part of the Beta testing??? PLEASE! PRETTY PLEASE???

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Posted in Problems forum, but figured I’d post here too…

I’ve been doing some tests and Snapmarks have given me this error half the time: “Snapmarks do not match.” The only solution was to make an entirely new jig to test my next engrave… but now that doesn’t work either.

  • The Snapmark symbols are exactly the correct size
  • The symbols are paths, not shapes
  • I’m searching for snapmarks at the Jig’s height
  • I’ve cleaned the lid camera lens
  • I’ve tried using an old jig that worked with the exact same placement, no go

I’m just trying to engrave some 12mm dice. Any help is appreciated.

@pauljima, how close together are the marks? I’ve had some issues with it reading (once in a while) when the marks were spaced close together. You can try making a larger jig, make sure the marks are well inside the edges of the jig cut out, and space them a few inches apart at least. (Just give them some space on the jig.)

I’ll give that a shot, thanks!

Ok, nope, that didn’t work. I also immediately tried aligning to Snapmarks right after it finished scoring the symbols… didn’t even open the lid, let alone move the wood. Still says they don’t match.

Here’s the SVG I used…Dice%20Template%20Kill%20(Snapmark)

I believe your Snapmarks got resized. They have to each measure exactly 0.332" x 0.405".

When I resized them correctly and moved them up above the dice it snapped just fine.

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I don’t get it… I just checked my SVG and the measurements are exactly 8.437mm x 10.279mm… as is required by the original article.

Hmmm, it seems Illustrator doesn’t like 0.332x0.405" exactly and changes it to 0.3322x0.4047", but the MM size is exact.

I just checked the Template SVG Glowforge provides and it’s the same.

Not to mention I used these exact same shapes earlier today… sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn’t, and now it permanently doesn’t work.

What settings are you using to save the file? (And which version of Illustrator are you using?) Might be some kind of rounding error.

When I opened your file in my version of AI (CS5), the size of the snapmarks was shown as 0.3543" by 0.4317". That ratio works out to be the difference between 90 and 96 dpi, which is a common Inkscape scaling issue after the latest update. Was it an Inkscape file? Or has Illustrator pushed an upgrade recently? If so and you loaded it, you’ll need to go through and check your setup pretty thoroughly…seems like every time one of the big boys pushes an update, it screws the pooch for the users for a while. The import and export DPI are critical when sizing SVGs, and these updates can affect them. With Snapmarks you want your import and export DPIs to match, and you want to set them at 96 DPI.

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