Poor quality graphics in verify

[Bill H]

I'm using X4 and am not satisfied with the quality of the graphics when verifying operations. The graphics are very 'jerky' and you can't really tell what's happening. The tool barely moves, but chunks of stock disappear. I've got the quality slider all the way up and the speed slider all the way down. What other settings can I change to improve this? X4 is running on a Dell 5400 workstation with an nVidia 760 (I think that's the number) card.

[EazyE]

Try using lower values in the boxes for steps and refresh.

[gcode]

There are 2 sliders on the setting page..

Slide them both to the right as far as they'll go.

[Bill H]

EazyE: I've already got both of these values set to 1. Any other ideas?

 

gcode: I presume you're talking about the quality and speed sliders. I've got the quality slider all the way to the right (max quality) and the spped slider all the way to the left (slowest). Speeding things up just makes it even harder to see what's happening.

[gcode]

On the second page of Verify settings

there are tool and stl resolution fields.

Try settingthem both to .001.

[Ocean Lacky™]

are you using the Play button or Fast Forward?

[FP1]

Is it maybe a nvidia 7600GT, or GS card? As a test, go to settings/configuration/verify interface/verify settings, and set a check mark for disable hardware acceleration. See if that makes an improvement. This disables acceleration only during verify. Another thing to try is downloading the latest drivers from nvidia.com if that Dell will allow it.

[Bill H]

gcode: My stl resolution was already set at 0.001, so I didn't mess with it. The tool resolution setting was at 0.008, so I tried changing it to 0.001. That didn't make any difference, so I went to 0.0001. Still no difference.

 

FP1: My card is an nvidia quadro FX 570. Disabling hardware acceleration didn't make any difference.

 

 

Maybe my expectations aren't realistic. Is what you see in verify supposed to be like watching the part actually get cut? I've got an operation where an 8 mm endmill is cutting a 0.50" diameter counterbore that's about 0.25" deep. In verify, there's no X-Y movement at all; the tool just advances along Z and the counterbore magically appears. Is this normal?

[Leigh @ Kodiak]

Ok, Verfiy does not show animation, but rather shows the result of each cutting motion. If verify were made to simulate cutting as an animations, we would all complain about slow processing times.

 

If you want to see what I mean, make a toolpath that cuts your counter bore with instead of a few simple helical arcs, it's done with 1000's of points and verify that.

[Bwalker]

certain toolpaths dont make full motions, helical boring and circle milling are two examples of this. There are softwares that will show this type of thing however. The backplot should show the same toolpath moving around its helix or circular interpolation though.

 

Kinda off topic: If you want really detailed verification, ICAM and Vericut are good exaples. expensive, but ICAM was probably the most impressive piece of cnc software ive seen to date. ICAM with material removal will show you the chips coming off the part in the verify. its very cool stuff. it really shines in multiaxis posting, the way it will modify the toolpath in the posting process to avoid collisions or overtravels.

[Bill H]

Thanks for the help, everyone! I think I've got a much better understanding now.