Up until now my gcode interpreter has simply been building a 3D path and ignoring the speed information in the file. I've been "babysitting" the program runs, moving the speed override ("throttle control") as I need to. I've added support for the speed information in the gcode.
For the acceleration development I've been rendering little boxes around each location point and coloring it according to the speed through the point. I thought it would be cool to change the color of the line as the speed changes. I thought such a thing would be pretty challenging and I'd give it a try later on. Using the point-coloring method or printing speed values to the console isn't very readable. I came up with a clever idea for coloring the line and it turned out to be pretty easy. Here's a shot:
I created a list of colors like the ones used on weather maps to indicate storm intensity. The vertical traversals in white in the center look a little funny because the up speed is different than the down speed and the colors kind of jump back and forth as the scene is rotated. Having the color blending in the lines really helped develop the support for speed changes.
I've calculated the maximum feed rate of my mill to be 18.75 IPS (inches per minute). Obviously since this is the first time I've had IPS support, I've never considered the speed in any sort of objective way. I just run the mill and position the throttle "by feel". So now I need to calibrate my brain and learn what speeds work for what materials and processes. I don't think there will be too many values I'll actually use. I'll probably use something like 1, 5, and 10 for nearly everything (and 18.75 for rapids, of course).
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