use excel in the feature tab?

[[st...]]

oke , this might be a weird one

but never hurts to ask.


i wrote a excel file that basically helps me create the quickest route between all the points i have in a program,

sounds a bit silly for small stuff, but we generally have a lot of programs with 1500-2500 points, so during creation it can be a tad tedious to organize everything so the program runs somewhat effective.

so i created a excel file that based on x-y-z data organizes the points for me and outputs me a simple list with the order i need to put the points/features in


now my question ; is there a way to use this list to organize my features so i don't need to manualy set each and every point in the right order?

thanks

[[Mi...]]

Hello!

Do you have a pcm-licence? Otherwise I have no idea how to achieve your task by means of the excel file.
Have you already taken a look in the section "Optimizing navigation by sorting" of the manual?
There it is explained how to sort the features by travel paths.

[[An...]]

Hello,
I'm sorry, I do not have anything to add to assist in answering your question. I am really curious, however, as to how you perform the sorting of the list of points. I would think that finding the shortest path between elements of a set containing 1500-2500 points would be a very messy travelling salesman problem. Are you able to share how you approach the problem?

Best Regards,
Andy Block

[[Je...]]

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Hi Steve!

I appreciate that you asked this question on the forum. It's a creative strategy, and I appreciate the innovative approach. For metrology software such as PC-DMIS, this type of route optimization for single-point probing is value-added.

However, Calypso is highly adept at automatic route planning and does a lot of the navigation planning for me. It follows a hierarchy for best-practice that runs based on the order of features (when cnc settings are set to run "from feature list") as they appear in the features tab. There also are addons available for feature route optimization, but I have never tried them so I cannot speak to their effectiveness. Calypso also is smart enough to probe prerequisite features as needed. For example, if a cylinder is located near the end of the feature list but its coordinate info is needed to aid in navigation for a feature listed earlier, it will adjust accordinatly.

I can see where having thousands of single point features may be a special situation. I wonder if the name of the point feature can help you sort the order to help minimize waste of motion. Feature-based programming is definitely superior to single-point linear "routine" based programming. I like how Calypso uses features as containers for nominal information and to house the probing strategies.

I'm interested to hear what solution you find for this. Keep us posted.