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Lightburn Software
$60 lightburnsoftware.com
With the laser market swelling like crazy
due to low prices, we’re seeing diode
lasers, CO₂ lasers, and even fiber lasers
becoming more common in makerspaces
and people’s homes. One pain point that
keeps coming up, though, is that the
software for these is either extremely
buggy or old, missing modern niceties
such as anti-aliasing and drag-and-drop
features.
Lightburn has stepped in to create a
software package for controlling these
machines that feels like modern software
and has an active team of developers
updating it.
Some features are worth the cost alone,
like the circle center finder, perfect for
centering designs on round things — a
notoriously difficult task. Other tools will
increase the utility of your laser, like the
ability to use a cheap portable diode laser,
unmodified, to engrave something many
times the size of the work area, like an
entire floor.—CK
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Nomad Sculpt on iPad
$15 nomadsculpt.com
For years the investment to get into digital
sculpting has been pretty steep. You
needed to shell out considerable cash to
begin to tackle the industry goliath Zbrush.
Even with free alternatives, you had invest
in a graphical tablet, preferably one with a
built-in display.
Nomad Sculpt has come along and
brought digital sculpting to mobile devices
like phones and tablets. With Android and
Apple versions available, testing this out
on an iPad has been an absolute delight.
A responsive touch interface that you can
carry around with you and sculpt on the
go? What’s not to like? There’s still a bit of
a learning curve, but at $14.99, it’s easier
to swallow.
The software can handle incredibly
complex scenes with millions of polygons,
and outputs in a variety of formats,
including ones that can be 3D printed.
New features are being added all the time,
such as the recent addition of texture
mapping, a missing feature that previously
kept this software a hobbyist toy and has
now opened it up to being an industry
competitor. —CK
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