Rotary Simulator

Tools ▸ Rotary Simulator · flatbed machines with a rotary attachment

What it does

Shows you the job that is already open in the Job Editor, wrapped on the cylinder, before you send anything to the machine. Two pictures, side by side, because they are honestly different questions:

On the part — a horizontal cylinder with your artwork wrapped around it: where each shape lands, whether it crosses the seam, whether it laps over itself.
Down the wire — the plain before/after numbers the encoder receives once the rotary compensation has scaled them, and the header flag it stamps on the job.

It is a viewer, not a job builder. Nothing you do here changes the document or queues anything — Cancel always leaves the job exactly as you had it open.

Height wraps around the part

This is the fact the whole tool exists to make visible, so it is worth saying plainly: on the rotary attachment, the cylinder sits with its long axis running the same way the head rasters, and the rotary slowly turns the part in place of the up/down motion a flat job would use. That means artwork height is the distance around the cup, tumbler or glass — not artwork width.

To wrap a design all the way around a 3-inch-diameter tumbler, the artwork needs to be π × 3 ≈ 9.42 in tall, not wide. A design laid out the usual way — wrapping left to right — has to be turned 90° before it goes on the rotary bed. Taller-than-the-circumference art does not error out; it wraps back over its own start, and that is exactly what the "On the part" picture is for catching before you cut material.

Before you start

You need a job open in the Job Editor with something in it, and a rotary profile configured for your attachment (Machines ▸ Rotary, or create one inline from here). If the Job Editor is empty, the tool tells you so and offers to take you there — it does not simulate a blank sheet.

Step by step

Open the job in the Job Editor (or turn on Rotary Mode there first — its profile and diameter are picked up automatically).
Open Tools ▸ Rotary Simulator.
Rotary profile — pick the attachment you are using.
Object Ø — the diameter where the artwork sits, same caveat as Rotary Test Pattern: a tumbler tapers, measure at the band the design actually covers.
Read the two panes. Nothing here needs an "Apply" — every field updates live.

Reading the result

Seam line — a dashed line marks every full turn. A band whose artwork straddles that line (crosses seam) meets its own start on the part; that is not necessarily wrong, but it is worth knowing before the artwork is cut this way.

Overlaps itself — an object taller than one full circumference cannot fit in a single wrap; the overhang lands back on top of its own start. The over-wrap readout gives the exact amount so you can shrink the design or the diameter.

Approx. — text that has not been resolved to outlines yet uses its layout box for the band extent, which is close but not exact. Resolve the text (or just proceed — cutting/engraving still resolves it for real) if you need the precise wrap position.

Down the wire — the drawn and commanded Y extents, the compensation factor, and the header flag (&y0T for a rim-style roller, &y2T plus the diameter for a 3-jaw chuck) are the exact numbers the encoder will use. They come from the same code path the real job build runs — this screen never invents its own version of that math.