CNC process visualization functionality

[sp5iou]

Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe.
Current release doesn't have milling / printing progress visualization as is available in some CNC controlling applications i.e. Universal gcode sender or LaserGRBL. It would be great to have it in this web UI

Describe the solution you'd like
Develop graphical visualization of CNC process progress to see in quasi-real time drill / nozzle position XYZ and in different color
what has been already milled / printed / plotted.

Describe alternatives you've considered
I am using other software Universal gcode sender or LaserGRBL, for my grbl-ESP32 based plotter, but they do not have web based UI and do not show shapes plotted from SD card connected to my plotter.

Additional context
See on the picture below what I mean.

[github-actions]

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[luc-github]

This a reccurent request and I have answered several time but again:

Gcode sender and webUI are differents:

1 - GCODE sender control everything, have all GCODE file data from begining of the job to the end of the job.
2 - WebUi know nothing and rely on CNC FW status to show information, even worst on FluidNC, during SD Job it cannot even query/access SD card.

So WebUI can only display info it get when it is opened, not before, it has defintly limited access to GCODE data

Display graphical visualization of what it is currently plotting is likely possible, but not what have been done before webui was opened.
one mitigation is to open webui when starting a job and not closing it - in that case the visualization can be show from begining to end.

• Doing a pre-visualization is easy as SD job is not ongoing so WebUI can load file from SD and do a rendering.

• Doing an ongoing visualization of what have been done when web UI was not open is not possible with FluidNC/GRBL_ESP32 or would need to setup a cache system, cache the file when upload is done from webUI, then detect filename when job is ongoing. then try to find where job progressing is on going in file based on current commanda / % of progression, that will likely fail to be reliable 90% of the time IMHO, and will use a lot of code for just a fancy feature.

The best that can be done is :
1 - pre-visualization -> I think it is already implemented in current fluidNC webUI
2 - doing ongoing visualization , it only need CNC FW echo each command it is processing- and use mitigation solution I proposed for begin to end display

Do you have any comment or suggestion about my feedback as I may miss some possible solution ?

Additionnaly may I know what is the benefit/purpose of live visualization vs % of progression vs a camera monitoring?

I would really be interrested to know, as per my point of view, it is more a fancy feature than a real benefit but I may be wrong.

[sp5iou]

Hi Luc. Thank You for Quick reply on my issue. I fully agree that web ui visualisstion must have some limitations against what ugs offers, but i like what You mentioned as possible: 1. Preview taken from SD card. 2. Resonable progres visualization when web ui is open before job started and kept on-line till the end of job. With features web ui already offers it could be enough to Say that web ui is complete solutions. So if development start I offer my involvement in testing On my Corexy plotter with grbl Esp32 controller. Best regards. Marcin. Pobierz aplikację Outlook dla systemu Android<https://aka.ms/AAb9ysg>

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________________________________ From: Luc ***@***.***> Sent: Sunday, May 15, 2022 5:15:42 AM To: luc-github/ESP3D-WEBUI ***@***.***> Cc: sp5iou ***@***.***>; Assign ***@***.***> Subject: Re: [luc-github/ESP3D-WEBUI] CNC process visualization functionality (Issue #244) Assigned #244<#244> to @sp5iou<https://github.com/sp5iou>. — Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub<#244 (comment)>, or unsubscribe<https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AYPAFTTSMWWVYOCAGFAXPVTVKBT55ANCNFSM5V6CBS7Q>. You are receiving this because you were assigned.Message ID: ***@***.***>

[luc-github]

For reference : this lib is for 3D printing https://github.com/remcoder/gcode-preview but seems having small footprint (18.5KB zipped) so may be a stripped version could be smaller
Demo : https://gcode-preview.web.app/

For CNC 2D and 3D it should fit too I think

Note: the code use : https://glmatrix.net/ which has 13.5KB ziped footprint
Note: glmatrix is an abstraction layer for : https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/WebGL_API

[ETE-Design]

@luc-github If you implement this it can also be used to show Preview of 3D Printer GCode :-)

[luc-github]

As mentioned above this need that the printer/cnc FW echo each command it is processing - I did not cheched what FW is doing it currently - I saw some Debug feature for echo - but too much debug/echo output may also affect the printer/cnc performance - no mention that the debug output for echo may also bring additional useless data that need to be sorted according printer /cnc fw - So it is not in my short time frame plan

But PR is always welcome

[luc-github]

I have give a try to https://marlinfw.org/docs/gcode/M111.html today and it echo only serial commands, not sd ones, so will need also a printer FW modification for this feature