Request to add in future versions...

NCPlot questions or comments

Request to add in future versions...

Postby Jon Morgan » Mon Dec 07, 2009 4:37 pm

Request to add in future versions...

Ability to enable or disable a virtual 'Block Skip/Block Delete' to verify my program.

Option to force decimal points for certain words (X,Z,U,W) while assuming a defined decimal precision of the machine. Some of our old programs have a mix of some blocks with decimal points and some without. It becomes a problem when it was written for a machine with 4 decimal precision and we want to run it on one with 5 decimal precision. I've created a script for this (I'd be willing to share) but it's slow, sometimes NCPlot warns me the script is taking too long to complete and asks if it should continue running it.

Convert program from English to Metric including the correction of feedrates and Surface Speed. Some of our old programs for metric parts were converted to English for programming and gauging. We now have metric gauging and would like the programs to be metric as well.

Ability to select two features and see the distance between (including angles). I often find myself clicking on a rough pass, remembering the number, then clicking on the finish pass, then doing the math in my head to see how much is left for finishing.

Option to choose one color per tool. For example, I'd like to know that whenever I see red I know it's Tool 1 regardless if it was the 1st tool programmed or not.

Ability to optionally add/modify an automatic header that simply says the Date, Time, and Programmer's Initials of when it was modified.

Option to automaticly 'Zoom All' when loading a program. A program that has excessive clearance for rapid moves zooms the whole image out with the current 'Zoom Extents'

I'd like to see a more convenient way to pan the image. I'm a Gibbs Cam user and have gotten very use to holding down Ctrl while clicking and dragging the image to pan. Maybe this could be implemented.


This one's simply a minor annoyance... why is the shortcut key for step forward (F7) the key BEFORE the shortcut key for step backward (F8). I'm a shortcut key using guy, but this one throws me off.


All-in-all NCPlot is an excellent program that has save me countless hours of time and has greatly eased the headaches of programming.

Thank you,
Jon Morgan
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Re: Request to add in future versions...

Postby scottmartinez » Mon Dec 07, 2009 8:54 pm

Hi Jon,

Thanks for the feedback! I'm going to go through your list and may need you to clarify a couple of things for me...

Block skip/Block delete may be turned on and off by clicking the status bar panel. The one that either says 'Skip ON' or 'Skip OFF', it toggles back and forth when you click it. The 'Skip ON' state is equivalent to the block delete being turned on.

I'm not entirely clear on what you need for decimal point handling... Do you mean that some words 'X, Z' etc. are 4 decimals while others are 5? There's a couple of tools that can help with this. The machine configuration can be set to use up to 5 assumed decimal places. This is on the 'Control Settings' page of the machine configuration, under 'Coordinate Resolution'. If you need to convert a program then use the 'Tools / Address Adjustments' tool. You can use this tool to change how one or multiple addresses are formatted.

The scaling tool 'Tools / Scale' should allow you to convert between English and Metric endpoints. If I'm not mistaken this tool does update the feedrates as well, but not the surface speed values. Again, you can use the address adjustments tool to scale individual addresses.

There is a measurement feature that is activated by a viewport shortcut. That is, when the viewport has the focus you can press the 'M' key and then click two endpoints on the backplot to get a distance. The upcoming version 2.20 also displays angles.

The one color per tool is one of those things that I'm surprised that nobody has brought up yet. It makes perfect sense and honestly I don't know why this hasn't been done yet.

I think I understand what you are after with the automatic header, but I'd like a little more detail about how this would work...

The Zoom All request makes sense.

The 2d views can all be panned by dragging with the right mouse button. For Isometric the RMB is rotate while Shift-RMB is pan.

I guess I never noticed that the F7/F8 order seems backwards. I always use the toolbar or the viewport shortcuts 'S' and 'B'. Anyway, the keyboard shortcuts can be customized by right clicking any of the toolbars and then clicking 'Customize' on the menu that pops up. Then click the 'Keyboard' button at the bottom of the window that appears and a new window called 'Customize Keyboard' appears. Any customized settings will be saved when you close the application.

I hope this helps, let me know if there's anything else.

Scott
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Re: Request to add in future versions...

Postby Jon Morgan » Wed Dec 09, 2009 10:09 am

I was unaware of the Skip On/Skip Off in the status bar. That's exactly what I was talking about.

I'm talking about adding a decimal point when there isn't one for instance if my program says X10 with no decimal point it would mean X0.0010 if the machine had 4 decimal precision and would mean X0.00010 if it had 5 decimal precision. I was asking for a way to add decimal points to certain words that didn't have any. I know it sounds like common sense that you should program with decimal points but I run across programs that don't.

I didn't know the about the 'Scale' option. It's under 'Tools / MultiStep Translate / Scale' on my version 2.07

The measure feature works well but it would be nice to choose lines as well as points but I'm sure that will come with the angle measurements in v2.20

For the automatic header I was thinking something like
(MODIFIED 12/9/09 8:10AM BY JWM)
then if the program gets resaved it wouldn't add a new date and time but modify the old one.

I've changed the shortcut key's deleting the old ones then making F8 step forward and F7 step backward but nothing's changed. Could you try and see if we get the same results.

One more question... when does it look like v2.20 will be available and will it be a free upgrade?

Thank you for all your help,
Jon
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Re: Request to add in future versions...

Postby scottmartinez » Wed Dec 09, 2009 3:20 pm

Jon,

The 'Coordinate Resolution' setting allows NCPlot to interpret values that have no decimal points. This setting tells it how many decimal places to assume, up to 5 places.

Now if you want to add decimal points, you can do this with the 'Address Adjustments' tool under the 'Tools' menu. Since you don't want to change the values leave the operation at '+' and the value at zero. Then enter the addresses you want to change and set the formatting string to the output you want.

To see more information about individual lines or arcs you can simply click them on the viewport. By default a small window appears and gives you a bunch of info like start point, end point, length and angles.

I'll add your header request to my list, shouldn't be too terrible.

I didn't try the step forward/backward after changing the shortcuts, but I'll check on it.

And yes, v2.20 will be a free update for registered users. It's probably going to have a couple more beta releases yet, but it's getting close.

Thanks,
Scott
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Re: Request to add in future versions...

Postby Jon Morgan » Mon Dec 14, 2009 12:26 pm

Here's a portion of one of the programs I needed to deal with...

( 7/16" DRILL )
N600G50X103750Z30000
N601T0600
N602G97S250
N603T0606M8
N604G0X0Z1000M3
N605Z-1.2
N606G1Z-13100F0.0025
N607G0Z1000
N608Z-12800
N612G1Z-15030
N613G0Z10000
N614X103750Z30000M5
N615T0600
N616U0W0
N617M01

When I do the 'Address Adjustment' like you stated I get this...

( 7/16" DRILL )
N600G50X103750.0Z30000.0
N601T0600
N602G97S250
N603T0606M8
N604G0X0.0Z1000.0M3
N605Z-1.2
N606G1Z-13100.0 F0.0025
N607G0Z1000.0
N608Z-12800.0
N612G1Z-15030.0
N613G0Z10000.0
N614X103750.0Z30000.0M5
N615T0600
N616U0W0
N617M01

I could adjust everything by dividing it all by 1000 but then I get...

( 7/16" DRILL )
N600G50X10.375Z3.0
N601T0600
N602G97S250
N603T0606M8
N604G0X0.0Z0.1M3
N605Z-0.0001
N606G1Z-1.31 F0.0025
N607G0Z0.1
N608Z-1.28
N612G1Z-1.503
N613G0Z1.0
N614X10.375Z3.0M5
N615T0600
N616U0W0
N617M01

Line N605 is now way off because it already had a decimal in it.
I've attached the script I created that gives the end result...

( 7/16" DRILL )
G50X10.375Z3.
T600
G97S250
T606M8
G0X0.Z0.1M3
Z-1.2
G1Z-1.31F0.0025
G0Z0.1
Z-1.28
G1Z-1.503
G0Z1.
X10.375Z3.M5
T600
U0W0
M1
Attachments
My Cleanup.zip
(631 Bytes) Downloaded 1603 times
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Re: Request to add in future versions...

Postby scottmartinez » Mon Dec 14, 2009 7:04 pm

Jon,

When using the address adjustment tool the format string determines if the result will contain a decimal point. Here are some examples to try to explain:

"##0.0###" this will give at least one digit before and after the DP.
"000.0000" this will always give 3 digits before and 4 digits after, adding leading and trailing zeros if necessary.
"##0.0000" this will always give 4 digits after and at least 1 before, with no leading zeros.
"######0" this will give just the integer portion of the value, with at least one digit.

The "#" sign is a placeholder used to determine how many digits will be allowed, but will be empty for leading and trailing zeros.
A "0" in the format string will always contain a digit, even if zero.

So in your script will need to use different format strings based on whether the value requires decimal points.

I hope this makes sense, the best thing to do is to experiment with the format string till you understand how it works.

Thanks,
Scott
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Re: Request to add in future versions...

Postby Jon Morgan » Tue Dec 15, 2009 9:30 am

I understand this... my script works fine.
What don't you like about my script?
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Re: Request to add in future versions...

Postby scottmartinez » Tue Dec 15, 2009 10:19 pm

There's nothing wrong with your script, I was just under the impression that there was still some confusion about the formatting string. I'm not sure why, was probably something on my end...

Scott
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