GFUI Visuals Tip: Ignored Objects Appear Differently Depending on Prior Settings (Reference Chart Included)

[InkTree]

Posting this here because I am too new to have posting privileges in Tips & Tricks.

I’m not sure if this has been covered before, but today I noticed that when steps/groups in the Glowforge UI are set to “ignore”, their appearance in that state is determined by their setting before being ignored (cut/score/vector engrave/raster engrave). These variations are compounded when you take into account the 10 different possible visibility settings available (precise and visible each of: default, high contrast, protanopia, deuteranopia, and tritanopia).

Because of all these possible appearances that could be useful when placing items (even if changing to a setting you don’t intend to use just during placement), I decided to make a chart. This shows 100 possible combinations of various types: active/ignored versions of vector cut, vector score, vector engrave, 3D engrave on vary power, and 3D engrave on dots. Since raster engravings are based on a grayscale bitmap, their visibility is based on the depth of black, so I filled those items with a diagonal white-to-black gradient before rasterizing. Convert to pattern wasn’t very distinct from convert to dots, so I left it off. I also originally did my raster images with both transparent and white backgrounds, but I determined that the GFUI always converts white to transparent, so I left the white ones off as well.

I decided to superimpose the variations over a collection of lines drawn on the Proofgrade Draftboard’s stock mask for the benefit of those who may use marking to help them in placement. I used Sharpie markers, and the colors of the lines are the following, in order: black, brown, red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, silver, and gold.

I forgot to clean my lens before doing this, but it has been cleaned in the last week. The image is fairly blurry, as almost all are a bit via the GF’s camera. I figured this captured the most realistic operating conditions. Personally, I was surprised at what marker colors showed best under various settings.

The final image is quite large. I’m going to try to post it here in full-definition, but if it has problems, I will edit this post to include a Flickr link to a full-def version, provided that is allowed. (Edit: worked great! Nice programming, GF folks!)
I’m also attaching the SVG I used for this test in case anyone else wants to play around with it. It’s just a single row; I took screenshots of it for each visibility setting.

Hope y’all find this helpful. I know I’ll be referring to it often.

GFUI Visibility Test.zip (194.4 KB)
EDIT: For some reason, uploading the SVG here is stripping it of the four embedded raster images at the end of the row. Does anyone know what that might be? SVG re-added in ZIP file. Thanks to @PrintToLaser for the advice.

[PrintToLaser]

An interesting piece of work there,

@InkTree

uploading the SVG here is stripping it of the four embedded raster images

That’s a Discourse thing, I think it strips SVG files of embedded images for security reasons. But you can drop a zipped file here.

[ChristyM]

Wow. I look forward to seeing what your dedication looks like when applied to design work!

[rvogt]

Thanks for sharing. That took a lot of time and effort!!

[dklgood]

This is a very interesting bit of testing. Thank you.

[InkTree]

Ah, cripes. I should probably do some of that, huh?

[deirdrebeth]

This is fabulous! I clicked through each one and of course settled on the very last one - this would have sped that process up immensely

[celesteprobichaux]

This looks like a lot of time and effort. Thank you. But it is over my head for now. Perhaps later I will use it regularly.

[InkTree]

Thanks for the tip! I updated my OP to include a zipped version.