What gets sent to the Glowforge from the plugin?

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I’m curious if it’s the whole document or just what’s selected?

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Curious about the answer too.

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I read the following article about the status of SVG 2.0 development. It got me thinking about this issue and the different formats and implementation of graphics. Translating any image file to motion and power control is not at all trivial and is a work in progress, especially given the continued development of browser based implementations.

http://libregraphicsworld.org/blog/entry/is-svg-2-really-on-life-support

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I drive my cutting plotter from a plugin in AI (CuttingMaster3). If I have nothing selected when I choose to “send to CuttingMaster” it will send everything, including stuff that is not on the artboard. If I select individual vector elements and then “send to CuttingMaster”, it sends only what I have selected.
I don’t know if that is how the GF will work, but it is very straightforward.

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I believe it sends everything.

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I’m more curious about the question… What would be different in those two scenarios that would make a functional difference? My understanding of the workflow is something along these lines:

Design file --> GF plugin/ui – sends the file + UI selections --> GF Cloud Processing – sends exactly what your GF needs to make the desired cuts (no more, no less) --> GF

I’m obviously missing a subtlety here – why might I care if the plugin sends all or part of a file?

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I may have an AI document with multiple artboards, and I just want to send one of them to print.
I may have five or six variations of one design asset, and I just want to send one of them to print.
I may have elements on screen that relate to the final finished piece, but which will not be printed (build notes, alignment measurements, reference shapes).
I may have one portion of a design that needs to be re-printed after being damaged.

With the plotter, I am only cutting (or “printing” or “sending to the machine”) one color at a time. Say I have a one design that is black and white and it needs to be applied to a black car, a white car, and a green car. I will select only the white elements to cut for the black car (using the black of the car in place of cutting black vinyl). I will select only the black elements to be cut for the white car. For the green car I will have to do two cut operations, one from the roll of black vinyl, one from the roll of white. I would not want to set up three different files to do this.

Sure, you can select the element, asset, or artboard, and make a new document, and then print from there… but that could then lead to some major file redundancy and confusion.
You should also be able to put something onto it’s own layer and make all the other layers invisible… but that can be a pain, especially for certain auto-traced things which have many many elements on a single layer.
I would hope that the plugin does not send layers that are turned off.

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Ok – looks like a semantics disconnect on my part.

To me, it would be ok if the entire document is sent, as long as only the designated layers/elements/etc. are processed and commanded to the GF.

Thanks for the clarification! :thumbsup:

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It would be good eventually, if it’s not already, for the plugin to have the option of sending specific art boards. Like was mentioned I often use multiple art boards in a document for variations and other stuff. My internet isn’t terrible, but it’s not great either and I would hate to have to send whole documents if I knew I didn’t need the whole document.

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You got me. I just checked and when you turn off a layer, it doesn’t appear in the print. (It might have been sent and not shown, I don’t know that offhand.)

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