Loop within a loop - or how to measure the same loop, multiple times?

[[Ed...]]

Hi.

Attached I have made a beautiful schematic drawing. It shows what I am working with; basically I have one plate with 9x11 products in it. But the products are divided by 3x11 products, then a bit of extra space and then again. 

I have been able to make a loop to measure 3x11 products. But how do I then make a jump to the other products so that I can measure 9x11 products in one run?

Hope you can help.

Kind regards.

[[Ma...]]

I think you can not use this. We already tried looping of a pattern and it's a no-go.

[[Ed...]]

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That's quite shocking, to be honest. So what would be the alternative? Measure 3 products, and have those individually loop 3x11?

[[Ma...]]

Make all initial features which can be looped without space, then make loop to fill whole block. If loop criteria are not changed, then you can reuse loop on other blocks.

I don't remember, but maybe you can select some iterations to be skipped.

[[Ed...]]

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Yeah I think this is what I have now. Any tips on speeding up the measurement? Thanks for your replies by the way.

[[Ma...]]

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 I hope you found a way - i'm out of Calypso for a week. With loop you can speed up programming, not measurements.

[[Ed...]]

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Ran into some different issues, but the Dutch dept of Zeiss is looking at my inspection program as we speak. So hopefully. But other wise I found a way, as I said; measure 1 product, create a loop for 3x11, and do that 3 times to get to 9x11. Works, but not as conveniently as I would have liked. Now if I want to add or change a measurement, I have to do it trice. But a well. Better than having to measure 9x11 by hand 😉

Thanks for your help.

[[Dr...]]

Hi Edwin,

When you pattern a feature, it replaces some of the feature’s Nominal values with a sort of “hidden” formula. In the case of a 2d Linear Pattern with a Z space axis, the X and Y Nominal values are the ones affected. The “hidden” formula for your Y Value basically says, “If the index of the pattern is between 1-11, keep the Nominal value the same. If it’s between 12-22, add the offset value once. If it’s between 23-33, add the offset value twice, and so on.” A similar thing is happening in X, but my understanding of your drawing is that the gap is creating a disparity in the Y spacing, so that’s where we’ll focus.

It’s possible to hijack these “hidden” formulas by entering your own formula in the feature’s Nominal Y box. Calypso will let you do so without much fuss so long as the formula includes the all-important “LOOP1” variable somewhere; this is the variable for the current index of the loop, and indicates to Calypso that you’re aware that you’re working within the context of a pattern.

To start, we’ll try to replicate the pattern spacing as it appears in the first three rows. Every index in the first row (#1-11) should all share the same Y zero value without any offsets – I’m going to refer to this as YZERO, but note that when you go to put this into Calypso, this is going to be a number (I just don’t know what that number is without seeing your program). Every index in the second row (#12-22) should all share the same Y value equal to YZERO + OFFSET1 (again, this’ll be a number, I just don’t know what it is). The third row will all be YZERO + 2 * OFFSET1, and I think you get the idea for additional rows.

The part that might seem tricky about this is how to get a stepwise function that spits out the same value for inputs of 1-11, a different one for 12-22, et cetera. When testing pseudobinary or stepwise functions like this, my go-to approach is to open Excel, create a column with all the inputs (in this case, 1-99), and experiment a bit. Though there are multiple ways to get this stepwise function, I think the simplest approach is “OFFSET1*round((LOOP1-6)/11)”. If you paste that formula into the Y Nominal, it should work exactly the same as your plain jane pattern.

Of course, we don’t want to just have this work the same as the plain jane pattern; we need a gap after the third row. Put in terms of indices, #34-99 need to have an additional offset that I’ll refer to as OFFSET2. Again, OFFSET2 is a number – you know what it is, I don’t. And note that this is NOT the gap between the third and fourth rows, but rather, how much larger than usual that gap is (i.e., the total size of the gap is OFFSET1 + OFFSET2).

So again, we’re left with the mathematical question of how to add OFFSET2 only when the input is greater than 33. And again, there are multiple ways to do it, but the approach that I came up with is “OFFSET2*max(sign(LOOP1-33.5),0)”. The sign function, if you’re not familiar with it, returns -1 for negative values and 1 for positive values (or zero) – very versatile for working in if-then statements. There’s also a signWithZero function that returns 0 (instead of 1) for inputs of 0; that’s good for three-way switches. But I digress.

Putting it all together, the formula that goes in place of your Y Nominal should be “YZERO + OFFSET1*round((LOOP1-6)/11) + OFFSET2*max(sign(LOOP1-33.5),0)”. And as a final reminder, the YZERO, OFFSET1, and OFFSET2 values get substituted for the appropriate numbers. And that should do it. Note that the features in the CAD window will still reflect the pattern’s offsets rather than the formula’s offsets, but just like with any formula, the stylus will go to the calculated location when it comes time.

[[Je...]]

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  I'm uber impressed with your solution and explanation.  It will be interesting to hear if this solves

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's issue.  Thanks for the contribution.

[[Ed...]]

wow

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, thank you so much for this. Let my try to get to work with this today and see if I can get to resolve the issue. I'll report back, but thanks a lot for taking the time to reply!

[[No...]]

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Great! I love solutions like this. I never made one as complex as this one before, but it absolutely fits my way of thinking. 😊

[[Ch...]]

great thinking everyone, I love the creativity as well, 

 

Also don't forget patterns allow for a a pre-programmed "list"

 

[[Dr...]]

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Great point, Chris! I completely forget about this pattern way too often; its versatility, even on nearly-regular patterns, is super useful. This approach scales a lot better if there are many features in need of patterning, and it’s far more intuitive than trying to understand a dense formula.

[[Ed...]]

I have yet to find the time to look at this. I've tried working with the code, but weird things are happening. Tomorrow, perhaps, an expert of sorts is coming by, perhaps I can have a look at it with him. I'll keep you posted!

[[Ed...]]

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We've settled for this. I've manually entered all product coordinates. It's somewhat time consuming, but at least it works and is easy enough to document. 

Thanks everyone, great help!

[[Je...]]

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Great point

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I also tend to forget about the pre-programmed list, but it's a powerful function with many use cases.

Patterns and loops are a way of thinking that can be strengthened over time and with use, similar to degrees of freedom and orthographic projection... or reading sheet music or flying a downed alien spacecraft from a bunker in Area-52.  All neuroplasticity and synaptic pruning and reinforcement.