- LASER EYE SAFETYBACK TO THE BASICS... continued

had significant uncorrectable vision loss from repeated low-level exposure. Unfortunately, during our conversation they mentioned that their pet dog was also often present in the room with the laser in operation and had also been having vision issues.

At the end of the day, each operator should become familiar with the hazards associated with the laser that they use and take precautions to ensure their safety and the safety of others that could be potentially exposed. For many lasers, this is as simple as using them as they were designed, without modifications. For others, these precautions may be more extensive, particularly with increasing personal customization of the laser and its use. In my opinion, the most significant hazard (and the hardest to address!) is complacency as we become familiar with the lasers that we use. So, please use your safety glasses, and I hope to never need to have a conversation with you about how lasers affected your vision.

Dr. Bryan Roof attended the University of Texas at Dallas, earning an undergraduate degree in Psychology and a Master’s degree in Applied Cognition and Neuroscience. He then earned his Doctorate in Optometry from the University of Houston. You can email him here.

Guest Contributor: Dan Shapiro, Glowforge

If you’re fascinated by creative tools like I am, you might have heard of some strange new names in the world of digital creations: DALL-E 2, Midjourney, Stable Diffusion, and more. They’re all examples of “generative AI,” a term that sounds like science fiction because until very recently it was. Behind the scenes, it’s cutting-edge research, machine learning, and very, very powerful computers.

Once you learn it, though, it’s a great option to have in your creative toolbox. No matter what kind of laser projects you make, having your own custom art can be a real game-changer. And I’m going to show you three ways to make it useful to you—today. I’m not going to walk you through every possible option; I’m just going to give you three different ways to move fast and get to something awesome. So let’s get started!

What are AI image generators?

Let’s begin by talking about what AI image generators are, and what they do. At the highest level, this is software that has been trained on millions of images and their descriptions. From this huge library of images and text, the software has “learned” the relationship between the two. It understands that “badger” is an animal. It’s also learned enough to know that “badgers playing hockey” is not an animal.

So you can reasonably expect that if you ask it for a picture of a “dog,” you’ll get something like this:

Notice that I didn’t specify a breed of dog, but I could have. I could have described the length of its fur, too. You can keep adding more words to see what happens. “Dog with a cute bowtie” might give you this:

All AI image generators have this same basic functionality: you type a description and you get a brand-new piece of unique, never-before-seen art.

How does AI art generation work?

Most of the time the results are … interesting. I compare it to an artist that’s studied just about every picture ever made, with descriptions of each. A wizard with Photoshop, with a perfect memory— the only challenge is that they learned everything about English based on just the descriptions of the art they’ve seen, and the grasp is somewhat tenuous.

When you describe what you want, they think about all of the pictures they’ve seen with a similar description. They recall the colors, style, composition, and every minute detail about that artwork. Based on that recollection, they create something original just for you. They make sure it’s not like any art that’s ever existed before, and nobody will ever make that exact piece of art again. That said, the language barrier means sometimes you won’t get quite what you expect—the software “thinks” a little differently than you. It also can get confused with too many conflicting descriptions (horse in space with a cat head playing volleyball), or with unusual relationships (river on a bridge with a building underneath). Then, it starts ignoring things and reverts to “typical” pictures. You can see there’s a lot of potential here! I’ve spent hours just playing with images, thinking about how I could use them with my laser. Sometimes I know exactly what I’m looking for, and build a long prompt detailing it. Other times I’m just following the wizard-artist wherever it wants to go based on a simple prompt like “dogs playing poker.” I used the results from that small bit of text, I created a custom playing card box on my Glowforge printer.

Option 1: Midjourney

Midjourney is a ready-to-use service that costs $30 a month. Anyone can use it, and it produces consistently solid results. It was one of the first generative AI services, and it’s the first one I tried.

It does have some drawbacks. You have to learn how to use Discord, a chat service that may not be for everyone. It also doesn’t support readyto-use styles; you have to input your own. And finally, your subscription gets you a limited number of fast-generated images every month; after that, you’re stuck with slower-generated images, which can be a little frustrating.

Option 2: Stable Diffusion

If you’re a do-it-yourself type, you can actually run an image generator at home. It requires a beefy, modern computer with an advanced graphics card - I had to build one from scratch to try it out. Install Git and Python, clone the software from github (instructions here), and you’ll be able to create images on your own computer. You can let it run overnight, then sort through thousands to find the one you like best.

If you’re comfortable with the setup and have a high-end PC with a compatible graphics card already, Stable Diffusion can be a great choice. It gives you all the knobs and dials to play with,

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