> I have only a little experience as a user of cut simulation, but the times 
> I've used it, it's been integrated with the CAM rather than with the machine 
> control.  It's when you're designing the cuts that cutsim is most useful, 
> IMO.  I wonder if Dan Falck's FreeCAD+OpenCamLib work would be a useful place 
> to add it?
>

Well, one thing is for sure: I will not write a new g-code parser/interpreter.
There is about three parts to this I think:
- openGL view (AXIS is quite close to raw OpenGL I think, FreeCAD has
one based on OpenCascade and/or Qt)
- g-code or other input interpreter (LinuxCNC obviously has librs274,
FreeCAD could work on some internal CAM-format maybe, but that would
need inventing+work)
- libcutsim (stock-model, cutting ops, surface-extraction/update)
- ui (AXIS has g-code preview, play/pause/stop buttons, etc).

>From having toyed around with developing a few CAM-algorithms I can
say that you can be led into a false sense of security by only
plotting static geometry on the screen. Forcing oneself to produce
G-code and viewing the motion often reveals small or bigger bugs. So
from a CAM-development point of view I think having the simulator work
with G-code input is good.

So this needs not necessarily be within the framework of AXIS. It may
or may not be faster/easier to write a new GUI from scratch that has
g-code preview, play/pause/stop, and an OpenGL context with good
rotate/pan/zoom etc. for drawing. I've already tried and failed at
this second approach, so it's unlikely I will try again (at least
until the scars heal, or I forget...:) )
Graphics performance is an obvious concern. With my toy-tests are
easily get up to 100-500k triangles, which starts to be slow to draw
using naive methods. If it turns out early that AXISs python-based
OpenGL will not perform then an OpenGL view in c++ might be required.

AW

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