Hi tuxcnc,You are absolutely right that the simulator cannot know which physical tool has been installed if that information is never provided.I think I didn't explain one important part of our concept clearly enough.The simulator is not intended to receive all its information exclusively from LinuxCNC. It should eventually have its own virtual machine operator interface.Think of a real CNC machine with a manual tool change.LinuxCNC requests T5, moves to the tool change position, and waits for the operator. But LinuxCNC cannot physically verify which tool the operator puts into the spindle.Our simulator should behave similarly.The user would be able to select and install a physical tool through the simulator interface. That tool could be T5, but it could also be T3 by mistake.The simulator would then use the actual geometry of the installed virtual tool, independently of the tool information stored in LinuxCNC.The same principle applies to workpiece positioning, tool lengths, and eventually fixtures and collisions.Of course, this requires a virtual tool library and an operator interface, neither of which is implemented yet.Your example of the M6 REMAP moving to a toolsetter is particularly interesting. The simulator already receives the axis movements through Stepper-Ninja, so those movements do not need any special G-code handling.Once we have physical tool geometry and a virtual toolsetter, we could also simulate the actual contact with the sensor and return its signal to LinuxCNC.I agree that additional communication might be useful for automatic tool changes and other machine functions. However, I would prefer to keep the original Stepper-Ninja protocol unchanged if possible, and investigate a separate interface for simulator-specific interactions.The main idea is to simulate the physical machine independently of the controller's assumptions, including situations where the operator makes a mistake.Thank you for challenging this concept. These discussions are very helpful for defining the architecture before implementing the next features.
