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Export to Glowforge?


SeanOSkea

Question

I am considering buying a Glowforge laser cutter for our studio but as it's a $5000 investment I want to make sure we are going to be able to use it with VW. There was another thread on this topic that seemed somewhat inconclusive as to how well VW works with cutters. Some said they had no problem, some said 'can't do it' and some had long workarounds via Illustrator or other software. Ideally what we'd like to do is build our digital 3d models, create viewports like we are doing for ink. but then convert those viewports to vector lines that the Glowforge can read and cut. No problem converting, changing attributes, and exporting in some other file format, but I don't want to spend hours in some other software preping files and crossing my fingers. 

So where is the conversation on direct or semi-direct export from VW to laser cutters? Or for 3D printers for that matter--something else we are considering. 

Love to get some official word. 

 

Sean O'Skea 

WW 18 Designer  Windows 10 

Various but capable PCs. 

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I did. I bought it knowing I'd be able to get drawings into it one way or another. And export to PDF works perfectly. I spent all day cutting stuff up. Its amazing how even simple things like corrugated cardboard look amazing when cut with the laser. No crushing or tearing. Cut any kind of paper product fine. 1/8 and 1/4 Lauan no problem. Acetate, acrylic look fantastic. The only thing I failed at was 1/4 Masonite. To cut through it the charing was just too much. It could do 1/8 Maso fine. I'm pretty impressed. The way I build models has just had a quantum change! 

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22 minutes ago, SeanOSkea said:

I did. I bought it knowing I'd be able to get drawings into it one way or another. And export to PDF works perfectly. I spent all day cutting stuff up. Its amazing how even simple things like corrugated cardboard look amazing when cut with the laser. No crushing or tearing. Cut any kind of paper product fine. 1/8 and 1/4 Lauan no problem. Acetate, acrylic look fantastic. The only thing I failed at was 1/4 Masonite. To cut through it the charing was just too much. It could do 1/8 Maso fine. I'm pretty impressed. The way I build models has just had a quantum change! 

 

I'd be interested in seeing some photos of the end result.

 

Kevin

 

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Sorry Scott, I don't check the forum as much as I used to. Just seeing this now. Yeah, VW to PDF to Glowforge is actually pretty easy. as you've discovered. A few issues to keep in mind: even in the PDF the GF sees all the lines. For example if you want to cut out a bunch of small planks as I do for making models. If you create a rectangle and make a array so you get a dozen or so in a row, be aware that the GF will see both sides of the rects even though on the screen it looks like a box with a bunch of vertical lines. So it will cut over all the vertical edges (except the very first and last with no neighbors) often charming the material. What you need to do is draw a 3-sided box [  and array that and then draw a line to cap the last one so the cutter just does one pass.  It really doesn't like Booleans either. You can get some weird results where it sees the intersection as pixels and tries to give it engraving settings. I think I've used something like Decompose  to collapse the modifiers and that fixes it. It may not be that exactly but something simple like that. But then sometimes I can get away with a Hidden Poly render of a 3D model in an ortho view and it has no problems. So over all VW with the GF has been really easy once you discover a few quirks. Same with the 3D printers and Cura. The only thing I just couldn't get to work was how to get drawing out of VW and into a SVG file for our Shapepoko CNC. But that one is in our shop on campus and I haven't been in to work with it for a while, cuz ya know. 

Hope you're having fun. 

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Great info as always Sean.  I've not run into too many issues with this and have frankly found that just using colors as opposed to layers or classes has worked fairly well.  Then it simply becomes an issue as to how best to organize the drawing in the first place.  Attached is an image of a map I made of our downtown area as a project for my wife's side hustle.  This thing is a bit addictive.  

franklin_map.jpg

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