Hi Greg, Am 03.01.2010 um 06:38 schrieb Greg Bentzinger: > > So now for a brighter topic - any chance the new tool table format > might include geometry + wear? I had heard mention some changes were > planned.
The tool table definitely is a data structure which has the "let's add this and that" symptom, for good reasons like you mention, and others. E.g. I'd find a reference to a automated touchoff strategy useful. There's another aspect to this: the tool table is useful beyond EMC itself. For instance, CAM programs could use information from the tool table to generate "the right thing". A standardized way to access a tool table would be immensely useful. For instance, I'm currently working with Christian Kohlöffel, the author of dxf2gcode, to extend it to support different machine types beyond a mill, as well as processes other than milling outlines. dxf2gcode needs needs tool information all over the place, and I assume most other CAM programs do. Duplicating this information is undesirable and error-prone - I'd rather import a standard tool table, from EMC (or others). Since I assumed shareable tool information is an industry-wide problem I had been googling around on the issue but didnt find a obvious candidate for such a format, although a saw a manufacturer who makes tool geometry information available in XML. Maybe there is such a format, I just dont know. That being said, my suggestion for the tool table's future would be: - switch to XML to make it extensible and self-documenting - document the format so it can be validated by other (maybe with a DTD, I'm an XML retard) This could also ease automatically generating the user interface for tool table manipulation. We'd love to integrate such a tool table into dxf2gcode if available, but the current format is a bit of a moving target. A likely answer is: "ok, do it" - well, given a suggestion if any, and if so:which XML tools/libraries would be the "EMC way" I'd actually look into it. I have an XML-capable person at hand whom'd ask to help me with the format design work. Let me know if you think this would be useful to follow up. -Michael > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ This SF.Net email is sponsored by the Verizon Developer Community Take advantage of Verizon's best-in-class app development support A streamlined, 14 day to market process makes app distribution fast and easy Join now and get one step closer to millions of Verizon customers http://p.sf.net/sfu/verizon-dev2dev _______________________________________________ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
