Professional Engraving Systems

Touchscreen Preview - by Jimmy DuBose

How many times have you started an engraving job only to find that the layout is wrong after it starts to engrave? Your material is ruined and your time has been wasted. The use of job preview can help to prevent these problems.

With the release of our new Viper Communications Suite, both our rotary and laser product lines have the capability to show a preview of the job to be engraved. The job preview capabilities of VCS are unique to Xenetech systems because jobs sent to the engraver can be previewed before running. Sure, that is impressive enough.

Let's say that my machine has a built-in buffer that can hold a repository of the last few jobs I have engraved. Yes, I could preview each of these.

Due to the unique design of VCS, I can extend that benefit and preview all engraving jobs on my computer, even if I have only set up the job and yet to run it. This is because JBS files stored on the host computer can also be previewed.

There are several benefits to having a preview of the job. The operator can double check the job before starting it. Also, when several computers have access to the engraving system previewing the job before it is started can prevent the operator from running the wrong job. With the Zoom feature on the preview screen, the operator can even proof text on the job before it is engraved. Job previews even provide the operator to scan through each individual plate of a batch engraving job.

Once the job is sent from the computer, you will see the following previews.

The green screen below shows the preview seen on a laser system, and the blue screen is from a rotary system.

If you press anywhere in the screen, the icons below the image will change.

These icons are used to zoom in and out on the preview.

Here are the images from a "zoomed in" perspective:

These icons are used to control the brightness and contrast of the image.

This icon is used to cancel the zoom mode.

Pressing this icon will take the preview back to the original full screen.

The user can pan or scroll in the preview while zoomed in. Every place that the user touches in the preview becomes the center of the view.

To preview a JBS file on the host computer, select Jobs from the Main menu on the touch screen. Next, select the preferred JBS file and click on the magnifying glass icon to preview the job.

You will see the same zoom options in this dialog.

If you select the "running man" icon, the job will be prompted to engrave. However, you will still need to press the Play icon to run the job.

Previewing jobs at the touch screen makes our engraving systems easier to use than other systems in our industry. Previewing a job before it engraves should decrease the waste of engraving materials caused by errors in software layout. If you currently own a Viper rotary system, you will need to install the new Viper Communications Suite to use this feature.