Originally Posted by
Tbkahuna
I wanted to do some 3D surface digitizing using my Tormach 1100 and PathPilot. I used the "gridprobe.ngc" program posted elsewhere as the starting point. There is also a "smartprobe.ngc" program as well. In the comments its states that the results of the digitizing is stored in the same directory as the .ini file. Within PathPilot I could not figure out how to even find the resulting file. I didn't want or need to do anything outside of PathPilot for accessing the files, and since my controller is wirelessly networked, I can directly access the data for processing on my laptop on that network. I poked around for a while and found where I thought the main file screen in PathPilot is pointing. I inserted the path in the gridprobe program and the data showed up right where I wanted it, in the PathPilot file screens. It worked with great success.
The path that points to the main PathPilot files screen is:
//home/operator/gcode/
I wanted the data stored in a folder named "Probe" so the PROBEOPEN command in the gridprobe file is:
(PROBEOPEN //home/operator/gcode/Probe/probe-results.txt)
I edit the program to change the file name "probe-results.txt" that stores the digitizing results as I run it so the data doesn't overwrite anything that was already done. This is a key thing to remember.
I did some very minor processing of the data by importing into Microsoft Excel. I had a minor problem with the parsing of the data on import to Excel. It was due to a very small part of the data from the probing which resulted in positive Z values while all of the rest were negative. There are different ways to parse the data, but something to keep in mind to make it an automatic process and not need corrections or adjustments.
I then exported the file as a .CSV file. I opened Alibre/Geomagic/?? and simply imported the x,y,z data in the .CSV file and had it automatically connect the points as splines. It worked great, and very quickly. The data went from the text file to a 3D sketch I could work with in Alibre.