3D view, simulation and playback

3D view

3D, on the canvas’s navigation bar, shows the toolpath at its real depths.

• Turn: left-drag.
• Pan: right-drag.
• Zoom: the scroll wheel.
• Back to top view: Top on the navigation bar, View > Top view or T.
• Straight at a side: click a face of the cube in the canvas’s top right corner (TOP, FRONT, RIGHT, …).
• Shallow cuts: View > Z scale in 3D stretches depth, for cuts too shallow to see.

Simulation

The simulation cuts the stock with every move of the program and shows the result. It is on when the app starts; View > Show stock (or Stock on the canvas’s navigation bar) turns it off and on.

• Top view: a shaded picture.
• 3D: a surface you can turn.
• Tool shapes: each tool’s real shape is used: a flat endmill, a V-bit’s cone with its tip, and a drill’s 118° point.
• When: it runs in the background after each generation. Until it’s done, the canvas says Updating the simulation… and still shows the stock as the last toolpath cut it.
• Without the toolpath: View > Show toolpath (also Toolpath on the navigation bar and a checkbox on the canvas legend) hides the toolpath’s lines, plunges and tabs. During playback, the tool still shows where it is.
• The stock alone: turn off Drawing on the navigation bar (or View > Show drawing) as well, and only the simulated stock is left.

Use it to see what the toolpath really leaves:

• material in corners;
• a missing pass;
• a cut into the wrong place;
• the floor of a V-carve.

The report gives the volume removed and the deepest cut.

On the command line, chipload simulate part.chipload prints the same numbers and writes a shaded top view (part-sim.png). --after N stops after the first N moves.

Playback

Under the canvas, a slider runs through the program by time, like a 3D printer’s preview:

• Dragging: the moves done so far are drawn, the rest faint, and the tool is shown where it is.
• With the simulation on: the stock is shown as cut up to that point, also part of the way along a long straight move.
• Marks on the slider show where each operation starts and where the tool changes.
• The readout shows the time so far and in all, the operation and copy, the tool’s X, Y and Z, and the feed.

Keys:

• ← / → one move;
• Shift + ← / → to the next mark;
• Home / End the start or the end.

▶ plays it at ×1, ×10 or ×100 the estimated speed.