Dang! Now you’ve made me crave a frozen treat. 
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I want Gelato. 
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I love your analogy, but it’s deeper than that in reality. It’s not just a treat. It’s a tool. It’s like everyone got a jackhammer and I got a sledge hammer. Can I still do the job? Maybe. But it’s a whole lot more work. And while I’m going about my day just using my sledge hammer, I am a bit envious when others are bragging about how great their jackhammers are.
[On top of that, some people with jackhammers keep trying to convince me of just how amazing my sledge hammer is, all while happily using their jackhammers.]
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That is the perfect way to put it!
I understand that they had lots of support issues troubleshooting snapmarks.
My snapmarks have worked perfectly ever since I got this particular machine. I love the feature and don’t know what I’d do without it. I understand that they released the calibration that helps with placement but it just doesnt compare to how easy the workflow is with snapmarks.
I wish they’d release ice cream… I mean snapmarks for everyone, even if it means that there is no support to go with it
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Exactly that.
When I was talking about how the camera alignment just doesnt cut it for some jobs I had at least one person tell me I was probably just doing it wrong.
Now that I have them on this particular machine they’re almost essential and are way more important to me than the camera alignment within X of an inch ever has been
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Snapmarks aren’t the same as accurate camera calibration. In particular, Snapmarks let you align multiple different cut/engraves perfectly, allowing you to make things larger than the Glowforge bed. You can’t do that with even well calibrated lid camera alignment, because the accuracy needs to be much finer than the lid camera, you need to use the in-head camera to precisely align cut/engraves to 1/300th of an inch. And that’s what snapmarks does.
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Was responding to a specific comment that removing Snapmarks from everyone would somehow make it better.
Would have been a better solution for the company to kill Snapmarks completely. But it’s not a better solution for any user, the haves or have-nots. Being upset with many, many company actions is OK by me. But a loss for others will never be my gain.
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Also in this analogy, a lot of people who thought they were getting jackhammers are still stuck in the line awaiting their sledgehammer… For years. And the line doesn’t seem to be moving at all. But the company did at least distribute free framing hammers to everyone.
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We are talking a lot of different use cases here.
For passthrough, Snapmarks were never intended to be used specifically that way. That’s not to say you couldn’t make it work, because the evidence clearly shows that it worked for a lot of people.
I believe they’ve stated that the passthrough software they are developing won’t rely on snapmarks.
I’d imagine that means it will be capable of handling the subtle rotations one might get from sliding material through, etc.
It also seems it’s possible that it would be a complete replacement for snapmarks, if they do decide to release it for non-passthrough machines. There isn’t really a commitment to do that though that I know of; it’s more than was promised for non-passthrough machines.
If that was the case though, it seems it would certainly be viable for print and cut jobs, etc (which I loved snapmarks for).
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it very much was, which was what i liked it for. for me, in particular, things like die cut pre-printed materials.
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I’m not sure but I think Alfred Lord Tennyson wrote about having snapmarks long time ago. Oh wait it wasn’t snapmarks….
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I absolutely feel slighted because I paid over 5 thousand dollars for a “PRO” with the idea that I could monitize it and without snapmarks the products I am making (have made) require constant attention and realignment if I am making batches or anything oversize where the snapmarks (working of course) would reduce that to the exception. That people got it who spent less gives me no heartburn, but that I was never able to use a feature that would save me time and increase customer satisfaction while others talk about it is just abysmal regardless of calling it beta or even saying alpha snicker snicker… If I need to make 100 of anything unless I lose sleep I am going to have potentially 100 different items with no QA factor other than the I Love Lucy kind (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HnbNcQlzV-4).
Not to mention that I feel the development practices and lack of transparency in the roadmap making it incredibly hard to support a company that looks more like Oracle (yes I hope you feel slighted at that comparison @dan) than Makerbot (which highly leverages opensource and is all the better for it). Features get rolled out faster and have many more available resources and the community so largely touted as tightly coupled to your development process would feel empowered and not exasperated.
You guys say you listen to the community, if that is true then this thread shows how much we are actually heard. Snapmarks and the way it has been communicated are a huge PR gaff and show a lack of intelligent leadership at the engineering level on up.
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I suspect this is about your process, not about the lack of snaps. If you’d like some advice about this sort of thing Id suggest opening a separate thread, we’re a clever bunch, and I’ll bet we can figure out how to get your process dialed in a bit so that you forget all about snaps and can move on.
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I was going to go with a ball peen hammer for effect, but that seemed to be a bit high on the hyperbole scale…
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Because everyone has paid for the paid for the same software, it all other areas of life its a moot point. Not when you’ve spent thousands of dollars. FWIW I have Snapmarks, I’m not complaining on my behalf.
But no one paid for Snapmarks, they were announced as an experiment that might or might not last. Their only mistake was to distribute them as wide as they did. They should know just how petty people are by now.
It is more like someone stepped out onto the sidewalk and started handing out $20 bills and when their hand was empty they went back inside. Everyone thinks that they should get one as well instead of being happy for those who did. The longer I live the less I believe in people in general.
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Your analogy is weak, no one paid the guy for the $20 bill so those that missed out wouldn’t care long term. They’d be immediately disappointed then go charge $20 to their credit card and move on.
This is more like a lottery we all paid for our lottery ticket and received varying results. At least lotteries are legally required to tell you upfront what the odds of getting certain prize are.
I’m truly at a loss.
If you can’t read and understand this there is nothing I can do to help you understand.
It’s not something anyone paid for, it is a road made to help get to what they paid for.
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I too am at a loss, it’s as if you didn’t read the conversation prior. Thanks kindly for the unhelpful quote.
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Go to the main website for glowforge, scroll down and read.
" Live Camera Preview
See your design take shape before you print. Onboard cameras show you a preview of your design on whatever material you choose. Place your design with your mouse or finger and position it exactly where you want."
The word exactly suggests precision placement, however that is not the case. Even with the new camera alignment I have lost material due to alignment and mis-cuts. Snapmarks were a way to achieve the precision perfect alignment they promised, and they worked.
I understand they have the right to pull back on the development and they decided to not release the feature. I have the right to not be happy about it. I was hopeful that one day I would get precision alignment that I thought I was getting from the get go. Maybe they will come out with something in the future to fix it, or be better then snapmarks, only time will tell. For now though, I’m not a happy customer. I don’t know what to say beyond that.
-G
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