Visual representation of work to do in axis

Hi,

Can any of this be done?

I would like a visual view of the plot in the current Z position - in other words, I have a 3D roughing pattern from aspire that is 16 levels deep (it's an easter egg relief), the axis plot screen shows a big mass of white or pink but what I'd like is each of the 16 Z-level passes to be highlighted or 'sliced' so it's apparent on the screen what level it's at. Obviously this only works for 3D roughing where Z is relatively constant but maybe there's an option hidden in the colors that allow something to be done?

Similarly rather than the white/pink is there an option to make the cut lines invisible (rather than pink) so they don't obscure the cut lines yet to be done.

Lastly, is there a way of showing the time taken so far, and an ETA of when it will finish?

Apologies if my terminology is wrong, I'm an enthusiastic beginner!

Thanks,

Thanks...

The preview.hide/show probably won't help - I thought perhaps I could auto-generate it with a program filter but I'm after a way of showing the the plot for each Zlevel, eg:

<press run>
G1Z-1.000F300.0
<show all plots in a dark color>
<show all plots on this Z-level in white>
G1Z-2.000F300.0
<show all plots in a dark color>
<show all plots on this Z-level in white>
...

I think the hide/show won't help out.

In fact, looking at this and the xrdb I'm guessing that the plot preview is calculated and drawn once and is then left for opengl to display, rotate & update - so any change in color (or making invisible) will have to be an opengl instruction. Does that sound right?

In terms of an ETA my thinking was that once the plot is calculated it has a rough approximation of G1 distances, and after it has completed (say) 10% of the total G1 distance it can estimate a total time of (time taken * 9). You could make it fancier by looking at the Feed rates... it's not essential but I'm really looking for a way of fitting this around other chores rather than babysitting the machine - even beeps on the last 5 minutes would be good.

But my interest is piqued so I'm going to have a look at the axis code and see if I can understand that...

I can't find any reference to that - can you give me a pointer?
Thanks,

I've looked at the docs, and the screen and the axis.py - i'm missing it though.

Ah, obvious once pointed out!

Thanks...