just started up a repeat job after not using the gf for ~48 hours. and found the UI had changed – the preview render no longer appears, instead replaced by a side panel with encouraging words. what’s most interesting though is that the alignment seems dead on for this job whereas before it was way wonky on the outer edges. this is totally anecdotal and i only have this one data point, but perhaps alignment just got a nice update. anyone else seeing this?
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I’m betting you’re seeing this: https://glowforge.com/latest-improvements/pause-longer-prints-faster-print-preparation-new-print-ui
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that’s exactly it. guess i missed that announcement. no mention of alignment improvement though, so maybe it’s just my imagination.
They do say they’re constantly working on alignment in the background. Mine hasn’t made any huge jumps, but I’ve gone from 16 clicks to 4 clicks at 500% zoom over the course of the year so I’m pretty happy with slow-but-steady 
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Hmmmmm. I really need to redo my alignment test pattern that I did as my first project on my permanent Glowforge. It may have improved and I never noticed. Thanks for the heads up!
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I’m glad someone else mentioned this. One of my previous prints “seemed” as though the alignment was better but I haven’t tested it. Mine was the worst on the left side, so I typically don’t pay too much attention to it. Really hope it’s not just my imagination. I’ll test something here in a bit and maybe I’ll actually look for the difference
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I also experienced better alignment. 
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Okay, so today I redid the alignment test that I did a little over a year ago on this machine. It’s a pattern of bullseyes with crosses in the middle of them, covering most of the bed (pretty sure I got it here but I can’t find it now). What I did was score the pattern on a piece of cardboard, then after the job was done I zoomed in on the pattern closest to the camera (center), selected all, and adjusted the location of the pattern until it was perfectly superimposed in the UI (it took 5 clicks down and 2 clicks left at a zoom level of 450%). Then I re-scored the whole pattern. What would be perfect alignment would be if no clicks were needed to get the images to superimpose, and we already know I don’t have that. What would be very workable is if all the images were off by the exact same amount so I could do an adjustment on one side of the bed and know that it is going to be the same on the other side of the bed. That is exactly what I got on this test. Interestingly, that is not what I got when I did this test a year ago. The offset varied considerably all over the bed and was pretty poor although not 0.25" at the edges. So I would have to say that alignment for me has vastly improved.
Another thing: I did this same test on my Pre-Release unit before sending it back, and while it did marginally better than this unit, alignment still varied all over the bed.
I’m stoked.
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my situation was running three units per run, jigged across the bed horizontally with optically centered designs. my runs prior to the update all had the outer two pieces’ bias significantly outward towards the edges while the center unit was basically spot on. i moved the outer designs further inward to compensate. after the update, I just centered everything visually again thinking I’d run it and re calibrate the designs to compensate on the next go…but the outer units were on the mark on the first try.
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