Compare roughing with finishing
This view is available in Cadivari 0.3.0. Start with a curved model and valid, enabled Roughing and Surface operations.
- Open CAM → Simulate → Remaining stock. The view opens after the first model roughing operation, or after Surface if no roughing operation is enabled.
- Inspect the coloured upper surface. Yellow and orange show material above the target, including terraces left by roughing. The green body underneath is the reference model.
- Choose After finishing. Most of a well-covered surface should approach green; remaining coloured areas show where material is still above the target.
- Compare the Maximum excess and Above 0.10 mm readouts. These describe sampled points on the model, excluding surrounding stock.
- Switch between stages, orbit the model, and use Top for an overhead comparison. Play or scrub the timeline to inspect intermediate removal.
- Return to Material for the higher-detail stock view, including the surrounding stock, or Toolpaths to inspect individual moves.
Read the remaining thickness
The upper-surface colours show the simulated stock height minus the target model height at the same setup XY position. This is a distance along Cutter Z, in millimetres. It is not distance perpendicular to a curved surface, cutter engagement, or the operation's allowance value.
- Green: within ±0.10 mm of the target at a sampled point.
- Pale yellow to orange: increasing excess, with reference marks at 0.5, 1, 2 and 5 mm. Values above 5 mm use the darkest orange; Maximum excess still reports the sampled value.
- Purple, when present: simulated stock more than 0.10 mm below the target. The panel reports the largest sampled shortfall. Inspect this in Material and Toolpaths; the comparison is approximate.
The green body's sides are reference geometry. The coloured overlay assesses the upper surface only. The stock outline provides context while surrounding material is omitted, so stock left for a later outside contour does not hide the finishing result.
The 0.10 mm colour threshold is a display threshold, not a machining tolerance or a guarantee of accuracy. A positive finishing allowance can intentionally leave coloured material. Roughing stepdown, stepover and ball-nose scallops can also leave more material than the nominal allowance.
Each stage includes the operations before it
After roughing and After finishing seek to the end of those operations in the complete enabled job. Earlier enabled operations contribute their removal. Operations set to Off are excluded. If there are several roughing or surface operations, the buttons identify each by its operation name.
The animation picker stays on the complete job while comparing, preventing an isolated finishing simulation from replacing the preceding roughing result. Play, pause, restart and timeline seeking remain available. Manual tool changes still pause playback. The cutter is hidden in paused comparisons and appears during playback.
Changing the model, setup, stock, cutter, operation order or parameters rebuilds the applicable simulation and comparison. Stale or invalid enabled operations must be resolved before the comparison is available. Choosing a comparison stage does not edit the document, generate a new toolpath or change G-code.
A quick overview with a visible grid size
Remaining stock uses the existing material-removal engine and the same enabled motion plan, with a bounded overview grid. Its requested spacing is at least 0.20 mm and scales with the stock's longest dimension to about 320 cells. The panel reports the actual comparison spacing. The separate Material view retains its finer resolution.
Stock removal, target comparison, colours and surface shading are calculated in a background worker, keeping the camera and playback controls responsive. The target height grid and up to three stage results are cached. Seeking can resume from an earlier cached stage instead of replaying every cut.
Fast timeline scrubbing keeps only the latest pending request. While a paused comparison is being calculated, the panel shows Updating stock comparison; the selected stage and its measurements appear when that result is ready. During playback the stock surface updates independently of the cutter animation and may briefly catch up on a slower computer.
Only the stock overlay and its readouts update as removal progresses. A paused view does not run a continuous comparison or rendering loop. Playback limits the display pixel density on high-resolution screens without reducing the comparison grid. Detail limits stop overly expensive model comparisons.
What this comparison can tell you
This is a visual estimate from sampled stock and the evaluated model mesh. It helps locate excess and compare machining stages. Features or openings smaller than the grid may be missed, and sampled maxima can differ from the finer Material result. Only the highest model surface at each XY position is compared; undercuts, sidewall stock, fixtures and holder clearance are not evaluated.
The view does not measure the real workpiece, verify cutting loads or create rest-machining paths. Use it alongside Material and Toolpaths and the existing export review.
When operations use selected faces
The comparison still covers the setup body's accessible upper surface. If Roughing or Surface targets only selected faces, unmachined areas can remain yellow or orange. This is expected: the map shows stock left by the enabled operations, including areas outside their selected machining boundaries. It does not expand those operations to the whole body. See Select machining faces.