@takitus, that might be the case, but again, iits speculation ,due to lack of information. People can continue to assume the best, but given the delays, its clearly not the case.
Thats the part where its really poor communication. Tell us what is done,and what is still being worked on. We can get a much better confidence level that way. If the trace feature was released just as it is today, I know I would be happy with. Like others have pointed out, it would be more of a gimmick than a precision tool.
Lets see if @dan is going to take the feedback a lot of his customers are giving him and get us some substantial status information on the features, and what is still left to do.
Well its not speculation. he confirmed it in another thread. He said he will be posting some video of 3d engraves in the near future. That should clear a lot of this up.
I agree about the communication part. If you look back at my post history Ive been bugging them to post 3d engrave stuff since I joined the forums. They just werent able to because they had pending patents. Now that thats taken care of and there are units out in the wild im sure we will be seeing a lot of that information in the upcoming weeks.
If a patent is pending, its already in the system and you have the protection from filing date. That is just an excuse that some have thrown around to justify without any basis in fact. If someone was intending in copying the patent, they would either way, and you would eventually litigate.
Im not trying to argue with you. I dont have anything to prove. I was just trying to help you out by relaying the information theyve given me. If you blow off everything thinking you know better, theres no point in me responding anymore. Im just a bystanding customer like yourself.
Hopefully the glowforge staff will post something in the coming days that will sate your curiosity. I know I wont mind any juicy vids of 3d engraving goodness.
@takitus if you repeat the cheer-leading as to why something can’t or hasn’t been done, it doe sn’t help either. When I see something that doesn’t add up, I’ll challenge it.
I also do not want to argue, and at the end of the day, the proof is in the pudding. Like you said, the glowforge staff will hopefully post something - If @dan is serious about trying to rebuild confidence, he will be a bit more forthcoming with updates.
It just irks me when “we have no time to give you updates, trust us, and we will deliver” type messaging from Glowforge - If your schedule does not allow for someone to take a 5 minute video and post it every month, then you can’t meet your deadlines.
Lets wait and see for what is to come in the next days. Certainly is going to weigh heavily in my decision to ask for a refund or not.
The redsail clone I bought was 2800 at the time, with 345 in shipping, another 380 for a reliable chiller unit that has active refrigeration. About 100$ in tubing, distilled water, antifreeze, and Rubbermaid bin for the reservoir. About 800$ for electrician to wire my garage with 2 20amp circuits with gfi breakers(building code here) and tandem breakers in my main power box(as my breaker box is at full capacity).
Not withstanding the headache that came with it, it cannot do 3d engrave. The control board and power supply is not set for variable power.
And the machine is too large to fit through any door on my house. It’s a garage only thing. Which means at least 4 months of the year, the tube is out and in warm storage(I had mine cut out 2-3 weeks ago).
The current Glowforge units do use the depth sensor and measure height at a single point
The problem will be that the software doesnt fully correct for lens and perspective distortion, and incorrectly transforms points from the lid camera source image to x and y points on the bed.
Lens distortion will be fixed, but perspective distortion will vary depending on the height of the material. I’m surprised they don’t use the macro camera for scanning traces, since it would allow you to compensate for perspective distortion even on uneven materials, but maybe that’s a future improvement
Thanks - based on that experience I wouldn’t be happy with a Redsail. I could manage the power connection but no 3D engrave and that large a footprint are both show stoppers for me.
I believe someone’s got a gopro stuck in a laser now. I’ll be offline until Saturday night and it may take some time getting it uploaded, but should have something in the next few days.
Yeah it was much thicker than I originally thought. You guys should take a macro lens to it and toss it up though, as I don’t think people will be satisfied until then. Or simply send it to me and I’ll do it for you ~~~~~ (kidding).
The depth sensor works, but the whole “measure, transform, update the trace” pipeline isn’t done, and we’ve got more refinements to the depth compensation algorithm coming.
Sweet.
I don’t expect it tonight. some folks might question the reality of it if it takes more than a week to arrive. I try to stay off the computer on the weekends anyway.
I took a photo of a sample cross-section of the people in the forum today…
