Glowforge

Basics

"With Glowforge, you’ll put a piece of material like leather, wood, or acrylic in the machine and it carves out your product using laser light. The technical name for the category of tools that includes Glowforge is a CNC laser cutter engraver, but that's a mouthful, so we call it a 3D laser printer." - glowforge.com

Important

It is recommended you schedule a one-on-one demonstration of the Glowforge prior to your first use.
Staff assistance will be limited to 1/8" and 1/4" plywood at this time. If you wish to use a different type of material, you will need to determine the proper settings for your material.
A limited amount of materials are available for purchase at the library. Please ask prior to your appointment if the type of material you need is available. Prices may vary and payment is by check or cash only.
Staff will need to approve any materials brought in by patrons unless it is Glowforge proofgrade material. We reserve the right to deny the use of the Glowforge if we are unsure if the product is safe to use.
You will need to have your design saved to a flash drive.
Glowforge can print JPG, PNG, SVG and PDFs.
- SVG & PDF are the only Vector file formats for uploading into the Glowforge machine that will allow you to utilize all features: cut, score, and engrave.
- JPG and PNG are ‘Raster’ or ‘Non-Vector’ file formats and will only allow engraving.
The library does not offer access to the Glowforge Premium Account. Design capabilities on the Glowforge app will be very limited. You will need to purchase your design or use other software to create your own design.
You can design projects with software that saves files as a PDF, including Adobe Illustrator, Inkscape, CorelDraw, Adobe Photoshop, GIMP, Autodesk 360, and Silhouette Studio (business edition)
Inkscape and Adobe Illustrator are available on laptops in the Imagine Lab. If you wish to work on your design in the lab, please be sure to schedule additional time.
The library does not guarantee the results of your project will meet your expectations. You are responsible for performing test cuts, checking measurements, and making sure you are using the correct material.