Laser Cut Maps Just Got Easier
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 1 พ.ค. 2024
- SnazzyMaps has be a staple in laser map making for years, but it is notoriously complex and confusion. How can laser map making get easier? Enter a new service called Laser Map Maker - a tool designed my laser makers for laser makers.
In this video, I will not only introduce Laser Map Maker but also share my personal journey with it. I will recreate a map I made using Snazzy Maps 3 years ago, highlighting the differences and benefits of Laser Map Maker along the way. By the end, you'll have a clear understanding of whether it's time to switch from Snazzy Maps to this new laser map creation tool.
If you would like you subscribe to a Laser Map Maker plan, please feel free to use my affiliate link: lasermapmaker.com/?via=steve
Check out some videos from the Laser Map Maker channel:
Understand Laser Map Maker studio: • Laser Map Maker tutorial
Build map files and a map: • Let's make a layered m...
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Hi Steve. I have been absent a while, so, will be binge watching your vids in the next fw weeks. You always bring awesome, concise excellent content, and I for one have learned a great deal from you. Thank you for all you do for those of us wishing to learn and develop - sharing your time and expertise is very much appreciated...Terry
Welcome back Terry!
This is excellent, soooo helpful, thank you for your explanation!!
Glad it was helpful!
LMM has certainly come a long way and its good to see a video showing their application in action. Thanks
Thanks. They are a great team of makers, so they understand what we need and are actively working on lots of great new features. I can't wait to see their improvements to topographical mapping.
Thanks, Steve! You're a fountain of knowledge.
Happy to help!
Thanks for the intro!
Glad you liked this.
The price for this is too much of a barrier. Hobby level gives you 18 credits, and each layer is a credit, so the map Steve created here cost him 3 credits. If you create a map with 4 or 5 layers, that is 4 or 5 credits. You only get 18 credits per month for $120/yr. It's a nice service, and looks great, but that is pretty steep.
I had a similar comment during my conversations with LLM and they are working on it.
Yes I agree, much too expensive.
Steve, thanks for keeping the video short and to the point. There are some laser folks on TH-cam that have good content, but can't seem to keep their videos to less than 45 minutes or an hour! This appears to a good product and I look forward to giving it a try if they introduce a free trial. Over $100 yr for the most basic level is a high price considering that a full featured product like Lightburn is only $60 and after a 30 day free trial.
I try to keep videos under 10 minutes if I can - 12minutes tops.
Wait a bit and I think LLM will create a better free tier. It was something I pushed on pretty hard. They of course need to find a balance between paying MapBox and Amazon for their cloud application, and how to host a service free to you that is costing them money everytime you generate a map. Tough problem to solve.
I have a BA and a Master's in GIS and discovering laser cut maps was better than any professional mapping I've ever done in 28 years!! Seems the market is flooded with them, though. Need to figure a way to take them to a whole new level! LOL
Love your vids, as always!
I've been doing maps for a few years. I've been marketing them as custom gifts, instead of trying to sell specific cities on Etsy. I did a craft show a few Fridays ago. Had lots of interest in the maps. By the end of the weekend, I had 5 custom map jobs.
I was pushing on LLM to expand Topographical map support as quickly as possible because lots of people seem willing to pay for that.
This is awesome! People do seem willing to pay for maps. LLM claimed that they add arbitrary labelling support too. They have a lot of work to do 😁
Thank you for the info! I was wondering how I could get into laser map production. I hope this will help me put what is in my head into an actual, functional design.
Glad it was helpful! Good luck on your quest and shout if there is content you’d like to see covered
Thanks! Cool tool. Question for you...after you prepainted, did you mask then cut? Or no mask?
I didn't do any mask; however my roads on the green layer were a bit under-engraved and I think doing more would have created some char and ruin the paint. I'm tempt to use clear acrylic for this layer so I can engrave on the front and paint the back.
Interesting snazzy is challenging so that’s cool nice to have another option.
It is definitely nicer than SnazzyMaps. Basically what they did was filter out a lot of the unnecessary noise in SM and clear up the user experience. While I was talking to Laser Map Maker about some changes I'd like, they dropped a new version of the code, so they are clearly eager to grow/improve their tool.
@@SteveMakesEverything awesome def going to check it out i do a lot of laser maps on slate and cutting boards I do agree the price is a bit much so sick of everything being a subscription but if the user experience is better the lowest one may work for me and selling just one would cover the subscription
@@ALXSHARPEN Yep, it seems everything needs a subscription nowadays.
I would buy it but...... paying (and quite much) for every map you create and export? Come on... Charge a price for the package, could be even a FAIR yearly subscription. But pay per extract..... not my money they're taking.
Keep an eye on their site because I believe they are going to add a free tier.
You mentioned contoured maps, did they mention depth maps for water too?
Yes, it was something I specifically asked for. They are moving pretty fast on this.
Hey Steve, I've been using SM for about three years without difficulty. I think once you get a process down, it's pretty straightforward. Does LMM do Bathymetric maps, that would be a momentous development.
Thanks!
I spoke to them about Bathymetric maps and they are working on it as part of their topo map improvements
@SteveMakesEverything Thanks Steve!
Great video. Do you know if there’s a way to incorporate software and/or process this for 3D Printing?
I don't, but I can tell you that the LLM folks are very open to hearing about new applications. I did have a long chat with them about height map images for CNC 3D carving and they seemed interested.
@@SteveMakesEverything Great! Thanks.
You can import the SVG into any model software and pull up the area you want to make mass, then combine the layers. Would be a 1 minute job after you learn the process.
@@Qwiv If you are referring to eleveations, yes you could do this, though it probably wouldn't be very accurate
@@SteveMakesEverything if the contours are correct, it is as accurate as anything else you 3d print.
This is great but I just want to laser engrave a city map on a piece of lwood, no 3D, just a flat map. What is the best way to do this? Thanks.
You can still use LLM. Create the land layer and either cut out the water or not, then create a road layer and engrave it onto the same pice of material. Just one layer overall. If you can't figure this out let me know and I can do a quick follow-up video.
Hi Steve, thanks for this video and your effort you put into this. I run into this service two weeks ago and found it is a decent tool. But biggest downside aside their pricing is that buildings are not shown at a certain zoom level. Unfortunately same approach for snazzy maps and all google maps related services. So if you need the buildings in the map only way is to select a very tiny section 😞
Ot did you find a solution for this aside QGIS?
I think the building problem is kind of universal for all mapping tools. I don’t think there is much you can do about this since it is coming from the map data rather than the tools.
@@SteveMakesEverything Unfortunately true!
@marcojurgel1065 there is a map scaling tool in Laser Map Maker that can increase the amount of detail shown at higher zoom levels. It's currently tops out at 200% scale, but this quite significantly changes what you can see from a higher zoom. In the future we will allow even further scaling to enable those features only available typically at lower zoom levels.
@@isaiahgrey93 Thanks for your explanation.
Steve, what laser did you use?
This happened to be the Creality Falcon 2 Pro, but any laser capable of cutting and engraving your desired material will work fine.
Seems like some people want a free map service so that they can cut maps and sell them, If you use someone's product to create yours, you have a responsibility to share the profit, otherwise the creator of the software goes belly-up and you no longer have great software A rising tide lifts all boats.
This is a common-sense insight. Definitely, if you are making maps to sell, you would easily pay for any subscription for this - probably on the first map you sell.
They just need a tier where you get one free every few months for hobbyists. The developer will get their money back in TH-cam vids of hobbies and word of mouth.
The Free trial is nice and works, but will be one and done or you will find a way to abuse that.
I started a free 2 week trial although that pretty much means 1 map and then you have to update. It seemed okay but sometimes I prefer scored lower level roads but I do not see a way to do that with LMM and I have not received any support from them/him. I hate to invest a years worth of maps up front and find this is someone hosting on a home server that closes down soon.
Not sure I understand your issue with roads. You can create a layer and then put anything you want on it.
@@SteveMakesEverything Sorry, i mean a single line score lower road not a 2 line engraved road. I can always unfocus to make it a little bigger.
@@cluanardavidson9214 Make sure you don't have any of the "Case" road layers turned on. These are the outline layers and will generate 2 lines.
@@SteveMakesEverything It appears I have a different version than you, i do not have "low" or "case" roads. I do have outlines so I remove that but it still imports to lightburn as a 2 line fill not single line score. not horrible but i'd like that option., thanks for your response sir.
@@cluanardavidson9214 If you have them selected in one of your map layers then they won't show up in the list. Try try start a new blank map, add a layer and then start adding roads to it. You should see a bunch that end with the word "Case"
If it was free I might use it instead of snazzymaps. 10$ per month noway. Pay per map would be better for me. Say 2-3$ per map?
Well having worked with both cloud services and MapBox myself in the past, I know that they wouldn’t make money at $3/map and that’s actually more than they charge for the number of maps you could build with their $10 plan. I have no influence of their pricing, but they are a business, so free for the good of humanity isn’t an option. When you make a map for someone, are you going to give it away? If you made one map and sold it, you would earn more than enough to pay for a month of subscription.
In short if it was free, it wouldn’t exist. To be clear, SnazzyMaps isn’t free either. I will point to the terms of use for SnazzyMap and while it’s free for personal use, you need a business licence to sell anything you make with it. Guess what, it’s $10/month too.
Really? They want to charge what I pay for Photoshop and Lightroom put together?
Way overpriced, no thanks!
I don't set the prices. I can only comment on what the tool can do.
If you're getting Photoshop for $10/month, please tell me where you're buying it - I would certainly buy into it for that.
@@SteveMakesEverything me also - photoshop for $10 a month would be a gift
after all that its a paid software.. thanks for nothing, I'll stick with free snazzy maps with a lot more options.
If you're willing to climb the Snazzy Maps learning curve, there's nothing wrong with it. Laser Map Maker is just easier to use, especially for new users.
Yet another subscription based service that institutes limits unless you pay big bucks! No thanks!
Definitely! The lowest "hobby" price is $9.60 per month, ridiculous unless you are selling these.
Agreed! I’d rather stick with Snazzy, not that bad.
Hey, I'm a maker as well, so I feel the financial pain too. A big part of my discussion with LLM was about a free tier that would allow someone making a map or two to do something useful. Keep in mind, for you to build a free map, LLM is paying for MapBox and Amazon AWS, so I'm sure even the hobby tier is pretty much cost recovery.
@@jf6720 lol, its 12/month the 9.60 is if you get billed annually
@@SteveMakesEverything I understand that Steve, but I’ve never been a fan of subscription services. If you make software sell the software and be done with it. When you’re at the intro level like I am, nine dollars a month may not sound like much, but to me it is, especially when I’m paying $277 a month for stupid cell phone service
Oh, good, another paid promo disguised as a "review."
Well I'm sorry you feel this way, but this is actually a much better tool than SnazzyMaps. FWIW in my discussions with Laser Map Maker, we did discuss implementing a free tier.
BTW, if there are specific topics you want to see covered, by all means, drop me an email. I'm always happy to help point people in the right direction.
I am constantly flabbergasted by those who want free information, plans, know how and even entertainment for free. Then turn around and bash the presenter for being paid in some fashion for that content.
There was no disguise here, Steve was up front. It contained the good, bad and the ugly. It involved not only testing the software, but multiple conversations with the vendor.
Please feel free to ask for your money back 🤪
@@dian3145 Thanks Dian. To be clear, no money changed hands for this video, which is something I don't generally do to ensure some freedom to express my opinions.
I saw something I liked, created a couple of projects to see if it was worthwhile, then shared it with the channel. Along the way, I provided some unsolicited feedback to LLM and ended up getting into some conversations to clarify the requests I was making. There's no agenda here.
@@SteveMakesEverything No worries, Steve. All of your reviews I have watched have had a great balance between the good and needs improvement facets of a machine. Whether you benefit via an affiliate link or other manner should not be judged by those who benefit for free by your wisdom.
I’ll put my cape away now 🤣
@@dian3145 Thanks! I was wondering if you were a lawyer 😀