Max animation speed input needed.

[rjurca]

As one of the product owners for the team responsible for this animation setting. I'd like to get feedback on its value and usage.

1. Do you use this setting? Is it useful?
2. Would it be more useful to have animation use the real motion settings, rather than an arbitrary animation speed? The F10 dialog, motion tab, has speed settings. Max speed could come from the
machine max speed setting. The F5 dialog "part/machine" tab. This would make the animation speed entry obsolete.
The animation slider concept would also change. Ideally it would be exposed so the speed could be changed while animation is actively running.

This is something I'm thinking about but would like customer feedback.

If you use animation speed and have thoughts about this topic. You can reach out to me at [email protected]

[louisd]

Do you want us to respond in this post, or to exclusively email you and not respond?

[rjurca]

You can comment here. If I have questions I'd prefer to move those off the forum.

[Kp61dude!]

Um yeah what this guy ^^^ said.... I started a post but backed out of it as soon as I thought the same. Oh and max kudos to rjurca for personally reaching out to the end users!

[vpt.se]

Agree ^^ rjurca + forum = profit

[louisd]

1. Yes, I use it. I program 100% offline, so animation speed is used almost daily.
2. Yes and no. To have animation hard-linked with motion settings would be a benefit some times, otherwise it would be a burden a majority of the time (considering current animation speed knobs being buried, if the slider was implemented, this gripe is moot).
-It would be nice to utilize an offline execution in real time, to assess routine run-times. However, the realist in me can empathize the challenges this might produce. I feel there's so many variables that are machine specific, equipment specific and even program-specific, such as touchspeed, returnspeed (for analog probes), fastmode, flymode, ability for the equipment to actually move circular if commanded (for retrofits and older controllers), etc... That I feel this is a bit of a fool's errand (to attempt to accurately simulate animation speed to equal real CMM run time).

How do I use it currently?
-I have Max animation speed arbitrarily set to 500mm/sec max (fastest cmm movespeed we have) and 100% animation speed, and that works for most of my efforts.
-If I'm programming something new, I will drop the animation speed to as low as 5-10% to watch it move relative to path-lines, just to confirm prudent part/fixture clearance and correct vectors.
-In rare occasions i need to execute the entire routine offline, just to set default user input values, I'd like animation speed to be super fast.

Suggestions/input RE: on screen slider:
-Brilliant idea, I love it, and want it years ago.
-If you were to implement an on-screen slider, which -on the fly- adjusts the animation speed during simulated execution, it would still be nice for the slider to have some user-input nominal, as the mean value of the slider. If you made the speed adjustment default at user input value, then have a +20x and a -20x scale in either direction, and maybe even a pause/play toggle... I would imagine that it would still enable everyone to effectively use it with higher functionality as it currently is.
-How cool would it be to integrate adjustment of animation speed into the mouse scroll-roller?
-For us to navigate into the F5 menu, click on animation, then just slide that speed % blindly, is cumbersome enough for me to leave it unaltered a vast majority of the times I utilize it.

-The instance when a slider would be getting in my way, or be useless, is if I use CTL+E to test out a single feature. What are the chances that I would be able to manipulate that slider for a single vector point or a very short scan, where the simulated execution is only a fraction of a second or so... Maybe exclude CTL+E (single feature execution) from producing the slider pop-up?
-Making the animation speed a toolbar item would also mitigate this, just keep it relatively compact, nobody likes enormous, wasteful real estate toolbars (**cough! cough** like the "Tip Selection" toolbar **Cough**).

[Kp61dude!]

1. Yes, I use it. I program 100% offline, so animation speed is used almost daily.
2. Yes and no. To have animation hard-linked with motion settings would be a benefit some times, otherwise it would be a burden a majority of the time (considering current animation speed knobs being buried, if the slider was implemented, this gripe is moot).
-It would be nice to utilize an offline execution in real time, to assess routine run-times. However, the realist in me can empathize the challenges this might produce. I feel there's so many variables that are machine specific, equipment specific and even program-specific, such as touchspeed, returnspeed (for analog probes), fastmode, flymode, ability for the equipment to actually move circular if commanded (for retrofits and older controllers), etc... That I feel this is a bit of a fool's errand (to attempt to accurately simulate animation speed to equal real CMM run time).

How do I use it currently?
-I have Max animation speed arbitrarily set to 500mm/sec max (fastest cmm movespeed we have) and 100% animation speed, and that works for most of my efforts.
-If I'm programming something new, I will drop the animation speed to as low as 5-10% to watch it move relative to path-lines, just to confirm prudent part/fixture clearance and correct vectors.
-In rare occasions i need to execute the entire routine offline, just to set default user input values, I'd like animation speed to be super fast.

Suggestions/input RE: on screen slider:
-Brilliant idea, I love it, and want it years ago.
-If you were to implement an on-screen slider, which -on the fly- adjusts the animation speed during simulated execution, it would still be nice for the slider to have some user-input nominal, as the mean value of the slider. If you made the speed adjustment default at user input value, then have a +20x and a -20x scale in either direction, and maybe even a pause/play toggle... I would imagine that it would still enable everyone to effectively use it with higher functionality as it currently is.
-How cool would it be to integrate adjustment of animation speed into the mouse scroll-roller?
-For us to navigate into the F5 menu, click on animation, then just slide that speed % blindly, is cumbersome enough for me to leave it unaltered a vast majority of the times I utilize it.

-The instance when a slider would be getting in my way, or be useless, is if I use CTL+E to test out a single feature. What are the chances that I would be able to manipulate that slider for a single vector point or a very short scan, where the simulated execution is only a fraction of a second or so... Maybe exclude CTL+E (single feature execution) from producing the slider pop-up?
-Making the animation speed a toolbar item would also mitigate this, just keep it relatively compact, nobody likes enormous, wasteful real estate toolbars (**cough! cough** like the "Tip Selection" toolbar **Cough**).

Sums up how I feel about it!

On the extra side:
I use MOVE/ALL commands a bunch and have noticed that the animation speed closely resembles the actual movement when set to the maximum animation speed and 100% (don't know what the actual max is I use 5000!).

1.Yes, daily! Programming offline would be a drag without it.
2. I would love to have a toggle to turn this off/on when desired. Things like actual movespeed, touchspeed, etc would be awesome to have!

I program offline also and the CMM is part of a 24/7 operation I don't get much time to use it so I rely a lot on my virtual world aka offline seat.

[kingsld1]

My biggest gripe with the slider is that it's too hard to set it even semi accurately. You barely touch it and its jumped 25 percent. I like to make the slider a little less sensitive and add an input box to put in a hard number

[vpt.se]

Maybe... show a speed slider during animation, preferrably with a checkbox saying "Use machine speed values" that when checked uses the max speed setting of the machine. Unchecked should the max be like 400% of max machine speed (or any other ridiculous value)?

[AndersI]

I'm Hexagon (Nordic) Software Support, so not a 'real' customer - I use animation a lot, mostly running offline as fast as possible (no reality checks here!) to look for problems my customers experience. Testing a part looping program at 'nominal' speed would be much too wasteful with my time...

[rjurca]

I my mind if you use pc-dmis your a customer. In your case it is easier to find me since you have access to all my contact info.

[William Johnson]

Use it all the time as I only program offline. Would love to see the speed slider for animation. Just keep it small in size.

[michaelwildschutz]

I think it would be great value some of my customers that I write programs for sometimes want to know exactly how long a program will take to run so this would be very helpfull

[DAN_M]

1) Yes. I use animation speed and it is absolutely useful. I like to watch my probe drive around the part really slowly sometimes when I'm working on a sketchy section of program.

2) No. I am fine with the arbitrary animation speed. Its straight forward enough. It would be cool to have a box to type in a value like kingsld1 said.


What I would really like would be to see an improvement in the graphic display window mechanics. Kind of reminds me or an atari. When I am running a program in real life I can see the probe in the graphic window KIND OF following the program around the model but it is choppy and not really live. Could this be tightened up and made to look more realistic/live?

[michaelwildschutz]

that could be your computer graphics card

[rjurca]

Thank you for the responses. This has changed how I am thinking about the change request that has been made. I can see from the responses there would have been some upset people.I will add my new thoughts here as soon as I can.

[michaelwildschutz]

I think you should add it but still give the people the option to keep it as is but also the ability to change it if desired

[DAN_M]

A good compromise would be for you to add a checkbox somewhere in the F5 or F 10 menu that would give us the ability to use an absolute speed or a percentage of the machine speed for animation (just like you currently do with movespeed & touchspeed)