View and environment
Opened as its own view, the Robot Visualizer gives you the model full-screen plus a small set of display options that the embedded visualizer in the Flow Editor does not offer.
Display options
Show Coordinate Systems
Draws the coordinate frames on the model — most usefully the TCP frame at the tool.
Turn this on when you are teaching or verifying a TCP. The TCP's orientation is defined by an intrinsic z-y-x Euler rotation relative to the last module's frame, which is far easier to confirm by looking at the drawn axes than by reading three angles.
Show Grid
Draws a reference grid on the ground plane. Helpful for judging scale and how far the Robot reaches; distracting once you have loaded a real environment model, at which point turn it off.
Loading an environment
You can load a 3D model of the Robot's surroundings — the table it stands on, the machine it tends, the fence around it — so the model shows the Robot in its actual cell rather than in empty space.
Supported file types: .gltf, .glb, .obj, .stl.
Once loaded, the environment can be positioned relative to the Robot:
| Control | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Position X / Y / Z | Shift the environment relative to the Robot's base |
| Rotation Z / Y / X | Rotate the environment, in the same intrinsic z-y-x order used everywhere else in RobFlow |
| Scale | Resize the environment |
Scale exists mainly to fix unit mismatches: CAD exports frequently come out in millimeters where the visualizer expects meters, which makes the environment appear a thousand times too large. If a loaded model vanishes or swallows the whole scene, that is the first thing to check.
The environment is a visual aid only. It is not used for collision checking and the Robot will not avoid it. Collision behavior comes from the Collision Detection Node, and spatial restrictions from a Safe Space Safety Function in RobSafety.
What the model shows
The visualizer reflects the Robot's live state, so it is a reliable answer to "where is the Robot right now?" before you start a movement. During a run it follows the Flow as it executes — usefully so in Highlighter Mode, where you can watch each Node's movement complete before the next begins.
On a Dashboard
The same model is available as the Visualizer Widget, with configurable background and border colors. See Robot State Widgets — worth adding where the real Robot is inside an enclosure and the operator cannot see it.