Please confirm or deny these Glowforge 1.0 functions

I have preordered the pro unit. I have 2 questions regarding functionality i need help with. Unfortunately I have have not been able to attend any in-person demos so i’m hoping to dialogue about it here.
Please do not reply with “answers” if you are not Glowforge staff.
Thank you.

  1. Glowforge 1.0 advertises "3D High-Res Engraving. Attached is the quote and an example of basic “3D engraving”. Will the glowforge pro 1.0 unit have this kind of 3d engraving functionality?

  2. Attached is a still from the video on your homepage. You can see the drawn image has a clean smooth edge but the finished laser carved area is very jagged. Can i expect this level of cutting accuracy on the trace feature?

Thank you, i appreciate your help.

The first result of a search for “3d engraving” brings up a post that asks about the specific engraving that you have used as your avatar. Dan responds to it thusly:

The search button is the Magnifying Glass icon near the top right of the page. It might get you the answers you seek faster than waiting for a personal response from the Glowforge team.

2 Likes

I have already read every post on this forum relating to this. That post is why i decided to ask the question. “Yes, we should be able to” isn’t the definitive answer i was after.
“High-Res 3D Engraving” is an advertised sales point and a top reason I’m investing in a unit. I would like a positive “yes” if that is a function included on the Glowforge 1.0.
I don’t mind waiting for a direct reply to be comfortable with my purchase as i have specific work i will be using this machine for.

Fair enough. (btw, the second image in your post is coming up as a broken link on my browser)

1 Like

I’ve purchased 50K 3d scanners and high end equipment in the past. This will be my first equiptment purchase without an in-person demo of all the finished functionality. I don’t buy things based on faith, just logic. I may be purchasing several of these so i need to know the peg fits the hole.
Here is the second image again incase the first link was broken.

1 Like

[quote=“e81, post:5, topic:953”]
This will be my first equiptment purchase without an in-person demo of all the finished functionality.
[/quote]Mine too. And it feels weird. But I have also regretted not pre-purchasing several items that became cost-prohibitive when they hit the market.

I see what you are talking about now. Of course, that was done quite a while ago. Maybe @Kiko can post a macro close-up of his Legends of Wrestling trace-cuts that were done much more recently for comparison.

The image of the seal represents well the idea of engraving that most folks have. The picture of the floral motif tree on the six sided, I assume, Catan piece on Glowforge.com represents the level of engraving that has been demonstrated. All else in between is up for speculation. Confirm or deny seems harsh, but goes to establishing the metric by which you will judge your purchase. I too am eager to know details on the engraving capabilities of the Glowforge.

2 Likes

Just like any CNC, make a clean-up pass around the edge like you should. That is more up to how you use it, not what it can or can’t do.

1 Like

it’s not harsh. I’m not judgeing the machine, i just need to know if it is capable of achieving what i need it to do or not. I don’t care what the answer, i just need one.

“Engraving” usually creates 2 levels of surface plain with a hard edge.
“High-Res 3d Engraving” creates multiplane engraving with variable edge depth. (bitmap or poly based).

It’s not a cnc machine. Please don’t reply with “answers” unless you work for glowforge. It does not help this thread.

CNC = computer numeric control, that is precisely what the gf is. Same with a 3d printer.

1 Like

I believe he was referring to a drill / contact cnc based machine where you do have to clean up edges.

Please stop posting on this thread until glow forge staff replies. Thank you.

Please don’t reply with “Remarks” like that unless you want everyone on this forum to reply. It does not help this thread.

I gave you a good example of how one can and how they do in fact get good clean edges on a CNC/laser cutter.
Your image shows a unfinished product being worked on in the GF half way through. If you watched a little farther, you would notice that as soon as the GF came back for the cutout pass, it cleaned up the outside edges. There is no reason why you could not set up your file to do the same. It’s all up to you. You can’t blame the tool just because you don’t know how to use it.

2 Likes

Nope, Lasers too.

1 Like

e81, this is your very first post into the community forum. Asking for a GF staff only response is not what you will receive. The whole reason for the forum is to provide community support and yes occasionally informed answers. Dan, the CEO, will probably get to your question eventually. What we can tell you for sure is that the GF 1.0 is still in development with a early next year first production date. S/W is still being developed and Beta testing on everything has not started. GF has not announced any capability beyond what has been demonstrated. Dan has stated he will not make capability announcements in the general forum. His previous answer is likely as detailed as you will receive for some time.

7 Likes

If you only wanted answers from the Glowforge staff and not the other users, why did you post on the public forum? If you don’t want answers from other users, you can PM someone from the staff or email support@glowforge.com.

4 Likes

Hey Joe. I just decided to do contact them directly. This section of the Forum is called Ask Glowforge, i guess it was too much to ask people not to bog this thread down with speculation before i received a staff reply. The reason i posted publicly first is because i figured other people might have the same questions…

To glowforge staff: I’d really appreciate any answers to you can offer on my 2 questions. I’ll continue to check for replies on this thread and message support directly. Thanks!

It’s not so much what you asked, but how you asked it.

Asking people “Not to post” might work for a few people, but many of us old timers don’t much care for that type of introduction. We are more of the “How can we help you” type of people.

And BTW, outlining is a well know practice. It’s used in Tattoo work and everything… For that matter, you should have learned it as a kid. Remember “color between the lines”…

2 Likes

Here is a quote from Dan about the capabilities expected: