Coordinate Display

[Regnar]

I was wondering if there is a way to make the Coordinate Display bigger and bolder is the axis screen. I am an idiot with programming so easy to follow steps would be great. Thanks

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[Ray Henry]

Not that I know of. I also like BIG position displays so I use Axis in sim to develop and display tool paths but use Mini or Tkemc when running a machine. The Tk interface has a menu item that sizes the position display to your liking.

Rayh

[cyclestart]

The wiki mentions a file /usr/share/doc/emc2/axis_big_dro. However that file does not exist on my machine. Maybe it caused problems or was simply unspeakably ugly?

Editing that part of the wiki might be due.

[ImanCarrot]

What about one of them fresnel lenses (flat plastic with lots of circular grooves on it)- cheap and easy solution.

Like this:

http://www.ergoindemand.com/lcd-comp...ier-filter.htm

or this

http://www.3dlens.com/shop/largefresnellens.php

here's a video:

[andy55]

with pyVCP it is easy to setup another set of coordinate displays on the right hand of the AXIS window and make them as big as you want. There's an introduction to pyVCP in the integrator manual - start there.

[cyclestart]

What andy is talking about would look something like the attached image. How us stepper folk would manage the hal bit is beyond my knowledge.

The wiki entry I mentioned earlier is here.
http://linuxcnc.org/docs/devel/html/...s.html#r1_11_2
This idea may have been abandoned.

[Ray Henry]

I taught a bit of PyVCP at the CNC-Workshop this year. Not trivial but the class got to doing it themselves on the lab computers -- and these were stepper folk who started the week with our stepper configuration wizard (stepconf). I'll write up my notes and put them in wiki.linuxcnc.org.

I fail to see the need to create a distinction between "stepper folk" and other sorts of users. IMO we are all at some stage of learning to use and configure the system to our needs. The wide range and rapid pace of growth in EMC2's abilities means that we are all challenged to learning to do more with it. Forums like this, email lists, and IRC can really help with that learning. Your web work finding that pic helps a lot. Thanks.

[cyclestart]

I fail to see the need to create a distinction between "stepper folk" and other sorts of users.

The only large readout example easily found on the wiki involves encoders. That was the source of the "stepper folk" comment. No emc user version of segregation was intended. Sometimes my communication skills are lacking, to put it mildly

The desktop in the previous post wasn't found on the web, it's a screenshot. I could get as far as creating that xml file but no further.

    
        "X axis"
        
        "xpos-readout"
        ('Helvetica',50)
        "+4.4f"
        
        "Y axis"
        
        "ypos-readout"
        ('Helvetica',50)
        "+4.4f"
        
        "Z axis"
        
        "zpos-readout"
        ('Helvetica',50)
        "+4.4f"
        
    

Here's where it started falling apart;

Under [HAL] in stepper_inch.ini added POSTGUI_HALFILE=pyreadout_pyvcp.hal

So far pyreadout_pyvcp.hal contains only this line
linksp whatever pyvcp.xpos-readout
The "whatever" is the conceptual roadblock. Looking in a stepper hal file shows step and direction, nothing that suggests position in an obvious way.

Hope you can include an easy explanation of these type of things in the wiki entry.
In any case Regnar may have lost interest? For my needs this is mostly an interesting riddle.

edit/ That xml code refuses to paste in properly. I'll try again if anyone is interested.

[Ray Henry]

You are right of course. EMC2 stepper folk are users just like servo folk.

You've gotten quite a ways with the setup. We should note, for folk who look at your xml and say that it's not xml that the cnczone editor strips the tags from this sort of stuff. you are showing only the python commands with the tags removed. It's the tags that tell what each line does.

I'll copy a version of my cyclestart.xml file here using codes that cnczone and our browsers should be able to handle. I hope this works because it is really annoying not to be able to easily paste marked up text in here.

<pyvcp>

    <label>

        <text>"X axis"</text>

    </label>

    <number>

        <halpin>"xpos-readout"</halpin>

        <font>('Helvetica',50)</font>

        <format>"+4.3f"</format>

    </number>

    <label>

        <text>"Y axis"</text>

    </label>

    <number>

        <halpin>"ypos-readout"</halpin>

        <font>('Helvetica',50)</font>

        <format>"+4.3f"</format>

    </number>

    <label>

        <text>"Z axis"</text>

    </label>

    <number>

        <halpin>"zpos-readout"</halpin>

        <font>('Helvetica',50)</font>

        <format>"+4.3f"</format>

    </number>

</pyvcp>

Interested folk might read chapter 17 in the Integrator Manual for details.

Now to the "whatever" issue. Here the teacher in me wants to step back just a bit and describe how I recommend learning HAL and working with it. It is easiest to work with if you have a copy of the HAL manual handy and also have a running HAL.

You created a running HAL when you took that screen shot. I like to examine HAL using a little GUI tool available under the AXIS -> Machine menu. It is the "Show Hal Configuration" item near the bottom of the menu list. I'll attach a screenshot of that showing your PyVCP pins and how I connected them to the Xpos-cmd HAL signal.

It the event that the command I typed down near the bottom left in the attachment isn't readable here is what I did.

I clicked on signals in the tree widget on the left and found that under axis X, Y, Z there is a set of signals named Xpos-cmd, Ypos-cmd, and Zpos-cmd. One at a time, I created link signal to pin (linksp) commands in that entry line that looked like these.

linksp Xpos-cmd pyvcp.xpos-readout

linksp Ypos-cmd pyvcp.ypos-readout

linksp Zpos-cmd pyvcp.zpos-readout

after testing and seeing that they worked I created a cyclestart.hal file with these three lines and added it to my stepper configuration directory.

After that I commanded EMC2 to execute that file by adding it to the INI file using a postgui command that looks like this

POSTGUI_HALFILE = cyclestart.hal

at the bottom of the Hardware Abstraction Layer section.

Hope this helps

Rayh

[acondit]

Ray,

I tried out your suggestion on my lathe. Generally it works great.

What I did notice was that Axis reloads the current position from the last position of the lathe (presumably from "lathe-position.txt"), while the pyvcp values initialize to 0.0. If I move the machine without homing it the pyvcp position display updates from 0.0 and are out of sync with axis. If I home any axis that was not already at home, everything gets put in sync and works fine.

I was also wondering, should these displays always be in machine coordinates or should they be switchable like Axis between Machine view and relative to coordinate system.

Alan

[cyclestart]

Hope this helps

Yes it does. I had seen the hal configuration window in axis before but did not understand why it existed. I suspect this information is reachable somewhere outside of the axis display as well but didn't know how to reach it.

The operative word in HAL is still Abstraction here unfortunately. However your example gives something to bite into. Most things worth learning require some effort.

[Ray Henry]

What I did notice was that Axis reloads the current position from the last position of the lathe (presumably from "lathe-position.txt"), while the pyvcp values initialize to 0.0. If I move the machine without homing it the pyvcp position display updates from 0.0 and are out of sync with axis. If I home any axis that was not already at home, everything gets put in sync and works fine.
Alan

Exactly right. The (X,Y,Z)pos-cmd that we connected to in HAL is in essence a raw position based on machine home. You would however have the same issues with a preset g54-59.3 or a g92 offset. I believe that you'd even see it with tool length offsets.

I have real mixed feelings about the "xxxx-position.txt" sorts of files for a couple reasons. But then I'm the kind of person who will go to great lengths to add real and accurate home and limit switches.

There is another way to connect these displays. Let me run some tests on a box here tomorrow and post the result. Either we will have a good answer or a bug report.

Rayh

[Ray Henry]

Today I tested position display stuff in EMC2's Hardware Abstraction Layer. Relative position wasn't there so we added a bit of code to add them to the HAL user interface named halui. We need to do more testing before we commit to including it in the next 2.2 release but if you want to test it by compiling trunk from the repository, it's in there. There are instructions on how to do this at the wiki.

If those last two sentences were a total mystery to you, and you must have this ability, contact me off list with the version number you are running and I'll try to make and ship you a module that does it.

Rayh

BTW there is also some talk of adding a menu item to enlarge the display font in the AXIS GUI. The folk are working on the home and limit glyphs associated with these position displays before this can happen.

[kudos]

a nice bit of info in here

is there any way to display a distance to go for each axis, as AXIS interface only has feature to display current axis in motion for distance to go its very hard to tell how far two or more axis have to travel before reaching there end of motion.

very handy for prooving out a program and such

[cyclestart]

AXIS interface only has feature to display current axis in motion for distance to go

Not exactly. Try this little triangle;

G00 X0 Y0 Z0
G01 X1 Y1 F1
Y0
X0
M02

The DTG for the hypotaneus move will read 1.414, the true distance.

A per axis DTG sounds useful and is probably (guessing here) very doable.

[kudos]

yes, i see what you mean like on all our fanuc machines there is a program check screen as they call it, which shows u curent Gcode line, next 3 lines of code , along with all the active Gcodes and Tool high setting etc
as well as machine actual postion, distance to go for each axis, becomes very usefull when proving out a program the first run,

as we are converting an old leadwell MCV to EMC2 this is something we would be highly looking for, ether to add and contribute to EMC or looking for someone to help us add it into emc as im sure there are many other people wanting a screen like the above for a proveout

rob

[Ray Henry]

Good thoughts folk.

There is always a bit of difference in thinking between folk who are developing for new machine operators, operators who have switched or are thinking of switching from another PC based control, and machinists who run commercial mills and lathes.

The fanuc type of display is an often imitated sort of display. Many of the domestic controls built in and for China looked and worked much like a Fanuc. Some of us have talked about writing a control that looked and worked like one of these. Some display things like DTG are recent additions and have not really been finished up to work like some commercial systems.

The good news is that this is open source and the assembly of a group interested in certain abilities is sure to get noticed and work will begin on adding graphical interfaces with very commercial abilities and operating characteristics. There was quite a bit of discussion about operator interfaces during the recent Fest.

It would probably be good to document the details and need for some of these kinds of abilities on wiki.linuxcnc.org. That is likely to grab the attention of developers and interested users. Most anyone can start and edit pages there.

[Al_The_Man]

is there any way to display a distance to go for each axis, as AXIS interface only has feature to display current axis in motion for distance to go its very hard to tell how far two or more axis have to travel before reaching there end of motion.
very handy for prooving out a program and such

That I believe is a very useful feature, especially when used in conjunction with feed-rate over-ride.
On a retrofit, I usually program the F.R.O down to zero!
Al.