Move along boundingbox ("Preview")

[peteruithoven]

Some people might want a preview of the boundingbox of their design on the material.
We could add a "Preview" button next to the execute button that only sends the outline of the complete job. The preview power could be 0% power and speed could be100%, but of course it would be great if this was configurable.
I would place this button left to the execute button.

(I still think the VisiCam solution is a better one, but it's more work to setup)

[t-oster]

I like this feature very much and want it myself, so as soon as I have time, I will implement it.

[t-oster]

Quick Solution: Create a new Laserprofile with a name like "Preview" or "Move Outline" and select the "use outline option". Also disable any optimization by selecting "FILE" as optimization algorithm. In the laser-settings for that profile just select 100% speed and 0% power. Works for me. This also has the advantage, that it does use a tighter outline than just a bounding box. Didn't test it with complex shapes though, so it may be, that it will also move around "inner" shapes.

[jnweiger]

I tested the 'use outline' feature. But used the algortihm "NEAREST". It does something strange then:

This design has lots of numbers and text using a single stroke hershey font.
The glyphs often are paths (that have a start and an end.)

To me it looks like a 'close all paths' feature. :-)

This is what I had loaded: (Photo above was taken before the laser finished)

[TheAssassin]

Ruida devices apparently have a specific command built-in for such a preview feature. I retrofitted a control panel on an OMTech Polar (which features a 6442S controller). It has a "Frame" button that (like in LightBurn) runs move commands to show the bounding box of the object for the currently selected job.

I suppose this feature depends on a correct bounding box being sent to the device as part of the job, which the Ruida driver does.

As discussed in #711 VisiCut could just send a job doing the same (or in the distant future send these commands directly ad hoc).