That of course has nothing to do with being cloud based, there may be a flaw causing out of memory or whatever in their algorithm (but that would happen locally as well). I have plenty of STL files I’ve made at work that crash my Simplify3D instance on my machine (and Cura 2.5)
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This community is really good about calling out the company when they fail to deliver something or move the goalposts. As you have seen it also will point out when a user didn’t do their homework. 
This is also a fairly forgiving bunch since we all stuck out the lengthy pre-order delays for that sweet discount.
We would love to have you, and you will find many others who enjoy discussing features like offline use… and complaining about things that we think the company should do differently. I myself have written many long posts in the vein of, “well here is how I think it should work.” They never get any official attention, but I don’t expect them to… I do it for myself because I like thinking through issues. Though, one always hopes if the users are all singing the same song, the company will take notice. So, it never hurts to be one of the voices in the chorus.
The fact is that the company has not yet delivered features that were promised, and some of them are quite substantial. They are behind on manufacturing, they are behind on software. The chances of them allocating resources to work on features that they have been philosophically opposed to, specifically an offline mode, are nil in my opinion. Zero. Zip. Bupkiss. Nada.
Your Glowforge is going to remain pretty much the same machine it is today. It will get better, I do believe that, but I do not believe we will see fundamental change on bedrock issues like the software model. There is no evidence of that, and much evidence to the contrary.
If seeing progress towards those changes is what it will take to make you happy with your purchase, I do believe you should bail out because it ain’t gonna happen.
If you do decide to stick around, welcome aboard!
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Lol, considering Glowforge was never on Kickstarter to begin with, I’m sure they would be even more helpful than usual 
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@christian.zagarskas, I know how you feel. I’ve bought a few things over the years that just didn’t stack up the way I expected and needed them too. To say it’s frustrating is an understatement. Don’t take any of the comments here too harshly (not that I think you have), most of these guys and gals will be pretty blunt, but it’s all meant well and we really do try to help each other out (it’s been a long ride). Many of the limitations you’ve mentioned we’ve all mentioned before. Believe it or not, some of those very areas have actually improved since launch and most of us expect them to continue improving. Some of those areas Glowforge has said they have no intentions of changing right now. I get that it probably won’t work for you, which stinks, because what the Glowforge does it tends to do very well. For as long as you’re here, welcome!
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Don’t hold your breath.
I know someone said they would not go back in time to find the answer but I did. Using the Internet Archive I went back to August 1st 2015 on the GF web site. This was their second snap shot in 2015 and really their first product orientated web site. It clearly states on the young web site page back then
“Our supercomputers in the cloud replace complex configuration and experimentation with sensors and cameras for perfect prints every time.”
It was or should have been clear even back then that to print you need to be able to connect to the cloud. For me I actually like that as it means I no longer have to deal with firmware releases as it should be transparent and we should get more capabilities as the cloud software evolves (For example around the camera). Secondly it also means that GF can harden the security processing way more than I could attempt to do on my router. On that point @christian.zagarskas I do welcome your comments around security although no vendor will indemnify themselves from user stupidity, like placing the GF on a public IP address with no form of firewall. However most of us will be on our NAT’d wifi connected to our LAN with hopefully no holes specifically punched thru the firewall (I don’t recall seeing any set up requirements for opening specific ports) I am not aware if anything actually does show up in shoran.io specific to glow forge. If it is then bring it up. But I suspect GF probably have most CVE covered by patching in the cloud to reduce surface attack areas and I personally feel safe knowing that the GF is not likely to be attacked publicly unless GF cloud is hacked. There is no way an external hacker is going to twiddle (technical term) with my GF when I get it unless they can some how pass thru my firewall in my router and get on to a NAT’d address and work out what that address is of the many IOT devices I have. On the security front the GF will likely initiate secured communication out over HTTPS to the cloud. Cloud to premise initiated communication will not translate past the NAT’d firewall without explicit firewall rules and so all communication starts with the GF and not from the cloud. So I think that its a bit of FUD to say everyones GF will get hacked, they won’t unless the mother ship of GF cloud does. GF and their cloud strategy is no different from any other IOT provider in that case. We have to expect that GF as per their statement will perform all reasonable security measures as commercially viable.
With regards to the NDA, since GF cloud software is just processing content in the cloud verses the same processing that could occur locally are you really in violation of your NDA with a company? What about if you use other software like Adobe CreativeStudio which is also a cloud backed software or even if you were running locally are you in violation for using software services that sends details back home. Then you also have other issues to think about like if you back up your work on drop box and the like. Not being a NDA expert (You should consult one) but using cloud based software that has no human intervention does not seem to violate any form of NDA when used in conjunction with the services you provide. I don’t think anywhere GF has claimed ownership for works of art provided by their consumers or any expectations of use for such things as marketing without any prior consent. If you were giving it to Glowforge to directly manipulate then may be. Anyway thats my take on the NDA approach. Again I think this is a little bit of FUD which a legal person could clear up for you in the way you create your contracts with your customers.
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adobe CS is cloud validated, but locally installed, locally run, and does not need an internet connection to work. it does not save files in the cloud unless you tell it to. it’s a very different situation than GFUI, which sends your print file through your internet connection to a cloud server, then back again.
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thanks for the chime in’s
I see how “the dance” is done around here. I’ve read every reply twice.
I have some ideas…
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It depends on if you are sharing assets using the cloud portion of it. But the intent of the mention really was to exemplify that there are many more things that are cloud related that impact this Particular NDA topic. May be Fusion 360 would have been a better pure cloud example.
that is why i said “unless you tell it to.” sharing files on the cloud is an option, but it is not a default. lots of people who cannot share files on unrestricted locations or who have NDAs use adobe’s creative cloud software.
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But Fusion is not pure cloud either. Most things are somewhere on a spectrum.
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I think one of the issues with the file you describe may be an artifact of how the Glowforge software interprets the SVG for user-selectable objects in the interface. GF Support has suggested drawing a unique color box around the complex design to “group” it. GF uses spacial grouping rather than SVG containers.
This seems to allow the GF processor to process much more quickly. You can ignore the cut operation on that outer box which is why to make it a unique color.
The determinant for complexity that can currently be downloaded is dependent on how long it is going to take to print, since the motion control waveforms are downloaded. Around 3 hours is the current limit with work being done to eliminate the limitations.
100K would only get you 10 seconds of operation because they use the least efficient coding scheme possible - raw data. The buffer is actually more like 128MB which gives about 3.7 hours. Zipping it compresses it about 27 times and would totally solve the time limitation. The on-board CPU would easily be able to decompress it on the fly. It is totally under used squirting 10K bps raw data at the I/O. But the cloud has other complexity limits.
When I bought mine I was fully aware it was cloud based. I never guessed that would mean it was resource limited to only handle small simple designs, be slow and unreliable. Supercomputers my a*** an RPI 3 would knock spots off their cloud servers. I don’t know anything about cloud servers but I guess they are resource limited depending on how much you pay for.
Commercially it makes no sense to me. The onboard micro is powerful enough to do what the cloud does and is already paid for. The cloud is a never ending cost.
palmercr
I am horrified. Is this TRUE? 100kb?!>!
If so… that fully explains all the time and extreme frustration I have lost over the lest 3 days messing with a 5mb vector file, trying desperately to import it in layers, pieces, parts, ect…
bleh. I suspect I am now experiencing anger…
I hope I am misinterpreting what is being said here.
Let me put it this way: Should I have any problems importing/uploading/engraving/cutting a 5MB pure vector file with fine details and 25,000 points? Because mine keeps failing.
No SVG, no images, just pure simple 1 point at a time very careful vector plotting.
Yes the format is simply step and direction for X,Y and Z and a laser enable bit at 10K samples per second. If the top bit is set the bottom 7 bits are a laser PWM value. The buffer is around 128MB and currently the whole job must fit that, so the max time is around 3.5 hours. The content make no difference to the length, it is purely the time it takes.
There seems to be other limits on complexity because the cloud process seems to have limited resources.
hmmmm…
I’ve got to put a video up here to show what’s going on. would you mind taking a look at it, maybe give me your thoughts?
No. The buffer is not 100kb as mentioned above.
If it’s not a SVG, not a raster, just pure simple 1 point at a time very careful vector plotting - what exactly are you uploading? PDF?
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What are you printing? A motherboard? There’s less than 240 square inches of addressable bed space to print on, right? So you have ~100 points per square inch, and every point is a necessary vertex… at some point a bitmap image may be more efficient to describe your image than the vector document.
Assuming you are 100% correct, the Glowforge is really not the ideal machine for you. And, didn’t you already make plans to sell it?
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Apologies - the buffer is about 100 MB not 100 KB. Sorry for the typo.
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