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Marking & Tracing

How to preview a job with the red-light Trace and run it with the laser.

Laser safety

Wear rated laser glasses, keep interlocks in place, and Trace before you Run. You are responsible for safe operation.

Trace (red-light preview)

Trace runs the job's motion with the laser off, using the red guide beam so you can confirm placement and size on the part before firing. Pick a mode from the Trace dropdown:

Mode Previews
Full The whole job, step by step.
Single Layer Just the selected layer.
Perimeter The outline of the marked area.
Hull The convex hull (outer boundary) of the marked area.
Area A filled sweep of the marked area's extents.

Start Trace, confirm on the part, then stop it. Trace needs the controller connected.

TODO screenshot: Trace mode dropdown

Running a job

Press Run to execute the sequence top to bottom. While running, Run becomes Pause — you can Pause / Resume or Cancel.

  • Device must be configured (a markcfg7 imported) or Run is blocked — see First-run setup.
  • If an axis that needs homing isn't homed, a prompt offers to home + run or run anyway (see below).

Galvo + FocuZ:grbl coordination

A job can mix galvo marking with FocuZ:grbl motion and accessory steps — for example: jog an axis into place, switch on air assist, mark, then switch it off. FocuZ runs these in order and waits for each motion step to finish before the next action. Jobs that use GRBL steps need the FocuZ:grbl controller connected.

Open-loop motion

Motion "completes" when the controller reports Idle, not when the axis is confirmed to have physically arrived — see the open-loop note. Homing is what gives position confidence.

Lens activation & homing gate

If the Z axis is enabled but not homed when you Run, FocuZ shows a prompt to home + jog + run or run anyway. This protects against marking out of focus on an un-referenced Z. See Lenses, Corrections & Calibration.

Progress

While marking, a progress bar shows where you are — a breadcrumb of group / layer / sublayer / pass — plus a percentage and an estimated time remaining.

TODO screenshot: marking progress bar

3D slice marking

A 3D Slice action marks a model layer by layer:

  • Slices run in Z order (top to bottom).
  • Sublayers (jog, accessory, etc.) can fire on every slice or every Nth slice (Run-every-N).
  • Fill-Through controls whether the bottom slice is marked.

See Importing Geometry for setting up a 3D job.

Run isolation

While a job runs, FocuZ locks the things that could disrupt it — the lens selector and per-axis Enable are disabled, destructive File actions are blocked, and Trace is unavailable. The engine works from a snapshot taken when you pressed Run, so edits you make during a run apply to the next run, not the current one.

See also