The preview replays, line by line, the G-code Lùmen has prepared for the project. You see the order of the passes, the moves with the laser off and how long it will take, before you switch the machine on. It moves nothing: it is only for looking.
1Open the preview
Choose View ▸ Preview Job… (⇧⌘P). With an empty project the command is grey. If you turned on Burn only the selection, the preview shows only the selected objects: if a job looks incomplete, check that switch first.
2Play the path
Press the play button to watch the job move forward in time; drag the slider to jump to a precise point; in Speed choose how fast: slow for short passes, fast to skip repetitive ones.
3Read the lines and the times
- In black, what the laser engraves or cuts; in red, the rapid moves with the laser off, which you see only with Traversal moves on.
- Shade by power makes lower-power strokes lighter, so you can tell powers apart. Invert swaps the background.
- Behind the path is the machine’s bed. Strokes that leave it are orange, on top of everything else.
Under the view you find Cut distance, Rapid moves and Total time. The estimate takes the machine’s acceleration into account, not just the speed. After a few finished jobs on the same machine, On this machine appears too: the time corrected by what similar jobs really took, from the job history.
Save Image… saves the preview as a picture, to annotate it or send it to someone.
What to check before you start
- the passes are in the right order: engrave, score, cut (see Engrave, score and cut);
- the rapid moves don’t cross delicate areas of the piece;
- nothing is orange, off the bed;
- the job starts where you expect relative to the origin.
The preview always shows every pass in the project, including the ones you turned off next to RUN: the start runs only the ones that are on.
The preview never blocks. It also shows what the start would refuse, like a cut off the bed, precisely so that you see it. Where the job will land on the real piece is what Show Frame tells you.