Some menu items might be grayed out depending on how you have your .ini file configured. For more information on configuration see the Integrators Manual.

From left to right, the toolbar buttons (keyboard shortcuts in []).

By left-clicking a line of the program, the line will be highlighted in both the graphical and text displays in blue.

When the program is running, the line currently being executed is highlighted in red. If no line has been selected by the user, the text display will automatically scroll to show the current line.

Figure 3. Current and Selected Lines

While the machine is turned on but not running a program, the items in the Manual Controltab can be used to move the machining center or turn different parts of it on and off.

When the machine is not turned on, or when a program is running, the manual controls are unavailable.

Many of the items described below are not useful on all machines. When AXIS detects that a particular pin is not connected in HAL, the corresponding item in the Manual Control tab is removed. For instance, if the HAL pin motion.spindle-brake is not connected, then the Brakebutton will not appear on the screen. If the environment variable AXIS_NO_AUTOCONFIGURE is set, this behavior is disabled and all the items will appear.

0.1000, 0.0100, 0.0010, 0.0001

3.5.3. Touch Off

By pressing Touch Offor the END key, the G54 offsetfor the current axis is changed so that the current axis value will be the specified value. Expressions may be entered using the rules for rs274ngc programs, except that variables may not be referred to. The resulting value is shown as a number.

Figure 4. Touch Off

MDI, allows G-code programs can be entered manually, one line at a time. When the machine is not turned on, or when a program is running, the MDI controls are unavailable.

Figure 5. The MDI tab

By moving this slider, the programmed feed rate can be modified. For instance, if a program requests F60 and the slider is set to 120%, then the resulting feed rate will be 72.

By moving this slider, the programmed spindle feed rate can be modified. For instance, if a program requests F8000 and the slider is set to 80%, then the resulting spindle speed will be 6400. This item only appears when the HAL pin motion.spindle-speed-out is connected.

By moving this slider, the speed of jogs can be modified. For instance, if the slider is set to 1 in/min, then a .01 inch jog will complete in about .6 seconds, or 1/100 of a minute. Near the left side (slow jogs) the values are spaced closely together, while near the right side (fast jogs) they are spaced much further apart, allowing a wide range of jog speeds with fine control when it is most important.

On machines with a rotary axis, a second jog speed slider is shown. This slider sets the jog rate for the rotary axes (A, B and C).

By moving this slider, the maximum velocity can be set. This caps the maximum velocity of axis no matter what is programed in the g code file.

The Feed Override keys behave differently when in Manual Mode. The keys `12345678 will select an axis if it is programed. If you have 3 axis then ` will select axis 0, 1 will select axis 1 and 2 will select axis 2. The remainder of the number keys will still set the Feed Override. When running a program `1234567890 will set the Feed Override to 0% - 100%.

The most frequently used keyboard shortcuts are shown in Table [cap:Most-Common-Keyboard].

AXIS has the ability to send loaded files through a filter program. This filter can do any desired task: Something as simple as making sure the file ends with M2, or something as complicated as detecting whether the input is a depth image, and generating g-code to mill the shape it defines.

The {[FILTER]}section of the ini file controls how filters work. First, for each type of file, write a for each type of file. This program is given the name of the input file as its first argument, and must write rs274ngc code to standard output. This output is what will be displayed in the text area, previewed in the display area, and executed by EMC when Run. The following lines add support for the image-to-gcodeconverter included with EMC2:

[FILTER]
PROGRAM_EXTENSION = .png,.gif Greyscale Depth Image
png = image-to-gcode
gif = image-to-gcode

It is also possible to specify an interpreter:

PROGRAM_EXTENSION = .py Python Script
py = python

In this way, any Python script can be opened, and its output is treated as g-code. One such example script is available at {nc_files/holecircle.py}. This script creates g-code for drilling a series of holes along the circumference of a circle.

Figure 9. Circular Holes

If the environment variable AXIS_PROGRESS_BAR is set, then lines written to stderr of the form

FILTER_PROGRESS=%d

will set the AXIS progress bar to the given percentage. This feature should be used by any filter that runs for a long time.

The colors of most elements of the AXIS user interface can be customized through the X Resource Database. The sample file axis_light_background changes the colors of the backplot window to a dark lines on white backgroundscheme, and also serves as a reference for the configurable items in the display area. The sample file axis_big_dro changes the position readout to a larger size font. To use these files:

xrdb -merge /usr/share/doc/emc2/axis_light_background

xrdb -merge /usr/share/doc/emc2/axis_big_dro

For information about the other items which can be configured in Tk applications, see the Tk man pages.

Because modern desktop environments automatically make some settings in the X Resource Database that adversely affect AXIS, by default these settings are ignored. To make the X Resource Database items override AXIS defaults, include the following line in your X Resources:

*Axis*optionLevel: widgetDefault

this causes the built-in options to be created at the option level widgetDefault, so that X Resources (which are level userDefault) can override them.

To improve the interaction of AXIS with physical jog wheels, the axis currently selected in the GUI is also reported on a pin with a name like axisui.jog.x. Except for a short time when the active axis has just been changed, exactly one of these pins is TRUE at one time, and the rest are FALSE.

After AXIS has created these HAL pins, it executes the halfile named in [HAL]POSTGUI_HALFILE. Unlike [HAL]HALFILE, only one such file may be used.

If it exists, the contents of ~/.axisrc are executed as Python source code just before the AXIS gui is displayed. The details of what may be written in the axisrc are subject to change during the development cycle.

The following adds Control-Q as a keyboard shortcut for Quit and turns on Distance to goby default.

root_window.bind(<Control-q>, destroy .)
help2.append((Control-Q, Quit))
vars.show_distance_to_go.set(1)

The menu options File → Edit... and File → Edit Tool Table… become available after defining the editor in the ini section [DISPLAY]. Useful values include EDITOR=gedit and EDITOR=gnome-terminal -e vim. For more information, see the DISPLAY section of the INI Configuration Chapter in the Integrators Manual.

AXIS can display a custom virtual control panel in the right-hand pane. You can program buttons, indicators, data displays and more. For more information, see the Integrators Manual.

Special comments can be inserted into the G Code file to control how the preview of AXIS behaves. In the case where you want to limit the drawing of the preview use these special comments. Anything between the (AXIS,hide) and (AXIS,show) will not be drawn during the preview. The (AXIS,hide) and (AXIS,show) must be used in pairs with the (AXIS,hide) being first. Anything after a (AXIS,stop) will not be drawn during the preview.

These comments are useful to unclutter the preview display (for instance while debugging a larger g-code file, one can disable the preview on certain parts that are already working OK).