Registration of pre-printed sheets

Also

this sheds some light on it. I know its not dimensioning but its a start.

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This is getting pretty off topic at this point. I thought allowing numeric input was just an extension of being able to “Shift+click” (or whatever) to move by single pixels. Apparently that’s not the case. I understand now: pixel resolution is reasonable (as long as you don’t count them). I’ll move along.

I believe when people said “What if the lid isn’t 80mm” they were intoning that it is possible to go one better than your request.

You are wanting precise entry of numbers calculated by hand. But if the camera is high accuracy (and the one on the cutting head is), then you should be able to select alignments right in the software.

So I should hope for a feature where I can just tell the Forge “Place center of this cut shape on center of this physical object” and the cameras themselves will find that center and the software align my print.

And “pixel” resolution is absolutely not something that the team would ever entertain (unless I am completely mis-reading them). If they give us physical nudging via arrow keys, they would also give us the ability to zoom in to the point where our on screen pixels are the 0.001" resolution of the stepper motors or smaller. A pixel is not a meaningful measurement of physical world space, unless you also reference the DPI of the image currently on your monitor.

Even if you can enter physical values… you are still a slave to the accuracy of the camera, because it has to find the start point of your measurement somehow. So leveraging the camera as much as possible seems ideal when attempting to get precision work.

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I could list 100 examples where software-based feature recognition will almost surely fail. When that happens it’ll be up to the user to make the best of it. I only hope the necessary tools are available to the user when this inevitability crops up.

Personally, I prefer to use hardware and software that gives the power to the user. If the Glowforge is intended to be used by children I hope they add a “Kidz Mode” to the user interface instead of crippling it for everybody.

It sounds like you’re drawing conclusions about what the software is going to do based on the discussion here - I wouldn’t do that. @Tony is going to take all this as advice and I suspect he’ll come up with something both powerful and straightforward as a result.

He’s good like that.

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That’s a relief.

I’m afraid of what might happen if too many customers ask for “complicated” features to be omitted.

Also note that the camera “distance to edge” will be much different depending on material thickness. So “real world” numbers have little meaning.
This shows a 20" piece of material, 1/2 think. Assuming the camera is 4.5" above bed.
The distance from camera to bottom corner (thin stock) would be 10.97".
The distance from camera to top corner (thick stock) would be 10.77".

Yes, the high res camera can correct for this.

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Yes, parallax is an issue when viewing 3D objects with a stationary camera. I would hope the macro camera could be used like an optical edge finder.

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Correct, As I noted above and stated by Dan in this video: (2:20)

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I would like two options, one where I can have registration marks on my preprinted item that the software sees (three circles/dots would be easiest I think). This is already available on other laser systems.

the second is where I have options to let me make a line in my image parallel with my material, or centered on my material, ect. Offset from edge would also be nice.

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I’m with Hirudin - give me a way to specify the positional details. I won’t necessarily use it all the time or even often, but I want the choice.

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Agreed. Definitely times you want to enter numbers.

Currently thinking about balanced sculptures…

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In one of the other discussions about alignment of bulk batches, mail merges were brought up. Discussing this with my wife had her instantly drooling.

The idea is that if I wanted to engrave student names on #2 pencils, I could open a pack and just toss them in the forge. Not worrying about orientation at all.

I then tell the forge to locate the shortest flat end (the tip of the eraser) and offset 1.5" in from there, centering with the short extent at that point, and engrave the name selected from the mail merge style list.

With those few commands, boom… my excel list of student names is moved onto the pencils, and they all align flawlessly with one another (sure, some may be on the side which comes factory etched, but if I really care then after my careless toss I just flip a few to ensure those sides aren’t facing up anywhere)

The way I picture this happening in the actual software would be that I use the magic wand to isolate a pencil. I then choose some command which indicates I have just identified an object which exists in multiple, the software asks how many are on the bed, and I enter a number. It then identifies what it thinks is each object, and I have the option to cycle through the list and verify each one (if I select item 5, then a standard mask is overlayed on the display blanking out everything except the fifth identified pencil).

I then accept the identified lot of pencils, and am presented with a nicely straightened out mask on which to align my intended cut/engrave. I select the Mail Merge option, and am provided a standard text box type of selection tool (after locating the file from which to generate the mail merge text options). I click on the spot where I want it to start the engrave (and if I wanted I could select a box area with click/drag, then choose to shrink text to fit, or truncate overflow). If I am satisfied with just manuallly clicking, I can leave it with my first click, but I want things nicely aligned, so I click on the Alignment button, and then select the top and bottom bounding lines, and click center. I then click the edge of the eraser and click offset, entering a value of 1.5"

At this point I click OK, and it shows me a preview of the expected engrave, again I can cycle through each pencil individually and see a masking isolation to check the work. If I am happy, I send to the Glowforge and press my magic button on the unit itself in moments.

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Sorry, I didn’t see your retraction footnote until I had already responded.

That’s a great workflow suggestion.

Here is an illustration of the request for the glowforge to find an object and then engrave on it (@tony). The trays on the left and right are different types of chocolate truffle. The tray in the middle contains two types. I’m not going to individually position and engrave 84 dozen truffles, but if you could just pop a try into the glowforge and be done…

And if you could find the sliced almond and just engrave it, that would be awesome.

I didn’t have a camera handy for any of the dark ones, but I’m sure glowforge gets the idea.

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Super cool use case!

And delicious too :smiley:

The problem with this is that those of use with iPads would not be able to fine tune. I suggest that there are also onscreen cursors/buttons that replicate these commands.