Simulation and time estimate

Simulation is a virtual burn on the canvas: the beam trajectory (marking and jumps) plays on top of the layout — no machine, no fire. Start with SIM (F4); press again or hit Esc to exit.

The simulator is the real pipeline

Simulation runs the same marking pipeline that builds the commands for the machine — hatching, delays, traversal order included — with the built-in controller emulator as the target, and the document’s side effects (serial auto-advance, hatch auto-rotate) suppressed. What the simulator shows is what the controller gets.

  • If the rotary panel is open, the real rotary cycle is simulated, sector-by-sector rotations included.
  • The Sim Red checkbox switches the simulation to the red light trace instead of marking.

Playback

The bar under the canvas:

  • Play/Pause, Stop, a scrub slider over the whole trajectory with a current-pass badge (object · layer · pass · angle).
  • Playback speed — 8 steps from ×0.1 to ×20.
  • A readout: segment number, X/Y coordinates, current speed (mm/s) and power.
  • Show Jumps — draw the travel moves.
  • The 3D button appears after a rotary simulation and opens a 3D view of the burn on the rotating part.

Honest indication

  • The badge at the top of the canvas reports the state (“Simulation”, the sector number for rotary) and explicitly declares animation simplifications: dense fill thinning with stroke width compensation, “pen passes ×N — showing 1”, “cycles ×N not animated”. The final geometry is still computed honestly.
  • Already-burned passes dim to a single brightness level and return to full brightness when the beam comes back; the Mark Contour outline is never dimmed.

Time estimate

The estimated marking time is visible in the bottom panel without running a simulation and updates live as pen parameters or the selection change — an analytic model of speeds, delays, and jumps, multiplied by the pass count. After a simulation run the estimate is refined with the emulator’s actual statistics: mark and jump lengths and the shares of time spent marking, jumping, and waiting.

A routing caveat: the simulation always shows one bounded pass; if the real mark will run as a continuous loop, the status says so explicitly.

3D views

  • 3D Render Settings (View → 3D Render Settings…) — lighting, material, and framing of the on-canvas 3D previews of STL objects; the projection is orthographic, changes apply live.
  • Rotary 3D Simulation — the burn on a rotating blank (a ring or a tumbler) following the same sector plan the emulator executed: ring profiles, a “Show to client” mode with material presets (the on-screen recess depth is deliberately exaggerated — the tooltip says so honestly), views/orbit, PNG snapshots. The canvas and the 3D window share one playback controller.

Status: Rotary 3D Simulation is a first version and its operator shakedown is not finished; the 3D picture itself is a software visualization and does not substitute for checking the burn on the machine.

Limitations

  • Exit the simulation before a real burn (SIM or Esc).
  • Very dense fills animate thinned — with stroke width compensation and an explicit badge.