2d form tool

[MPTD]

so i've created a 2d form tool from geometry and saved the tool and process as a saved process.
couple weeks later i use the saved process on a part and i want to verify the shape of the form tool.
how can i interrogate the form tools geometry that is running on my new part?

[planes1353]

The only way I know of is to use simulation and create a facet body. You can then use the profiler to extract geometry and measure it. Not perfect, but the only way I know. Just make sure your settings on your simulation are set to a small number.

[JeremyS]

At this point there is no built in functionality. I THINK a macro could do it though...maybe....probably?

[MPTD]

the tools profile data must be retained within the saved process so it can be used to calculate and offset correctly for new tool paths correct?
why not a "recreate saved form tool" button?

[JeremyS]

the tools profile data must be retained within the saved process so it can be used to calculate and offset correctly for new tool paths correct?
why not a "recreate saved form tool" button?

Yes, this is something that has been requested. It's enhancement request 53769.

[Mjbanderson]

https://forums.gibbscam.com/forum/gibbscam-discussion-forum/enhancement-ideas/5477-maintaining-2d-and-3d-tool-data?p=49674#post49674

[0x52 0x4b]

I'll see if I can cook something up this weekend or next weekend. I took a peek and saw where / how the geometry is being stored within the saved process / tool list files. Will just need some work on how to reliably extract that information to redraw it in Gibbs.

[JeremyS]

I'll see if I can cook something up this weekend or next weekend. I took a peek and saw where / how the geometry is being stored within the saved process / tool list files. Will just need some work on how to reliably extract that information to redraw it in Gibbs.

I'm not certain that the macro language has the necessary functionality to gather the tool profile....I may be wrong, but at a quick glance I didn't see it.

[catohagen]

I'm not certain that the macro language has the necessary functionality to gather the tool profile....I may be wrong, but at a quick glance I didn't see it.

Opening a saved tool into notepad I see alot of XML(?) with loads of information, and should be obtainable with string commands in the macro language...I think he meant this for extracting values.
Only problem I see is filtering out what you need...but probably doable, until some functionality to better deal with this are available

[JeremyS]

Opening a saved tool into notepad I see alot of XML(?) with loads of information, and should be obtainable with string commands in the macro language...I think he meant this for extracting values.
Only problem I see is filtering out what you need...but probably doable, until some functionality to better deal with this are available

No, that won't work. In general yes, our tool information is stored as XML in the file when saved, but it's not retrievable at runtime in XML nor is the tool profile information stored in XML, that's stored totally differently and not something you'll be able to track down looking at the file in notepad.

[0x52 0x4b]

No, that won't work. In general yes, our tool information is stored as XML in the file when saved, but it's not retrievable at runtime in XML nor is the tool profile information stored in XML, that's stored totally differently and not something you'll be able to track down looking at the file in notepad.

Opening a saved process or tlst file in a hex editor shows you the info you need.. I'm just not sure if Gibbs Macro language has this capability. I'm sure you know this already, but from what I saw it stores the X,Y,Z for each point in the tool's profile as hex, 64-bit floating point values and you can retrieve that to redraw the profile.
The current challenge I have is automatically finding where the tool geometry actually starts within the file - I can do it manually by looking, but I would need a way to write a macro to identify where to start pulling data from. I think I've found a few headers used to mark the start of the geometry point values, but still working on it. Either way, I'm unsure if I can do this within Gibbs Macro language

[the_cnc_guy]

Opening a saved process or tlst file in a hex editor shows you the info you need.. I'm just not sure if Gibbs Macro language has this capability. I'm sure you know this already, but from what I saw it stores the X,Y,Z for each point in the tool's profile as hex, 64-bit floating point values and you can retrieve that to redraw the profile.
The current challenge I have is automatically finding where the tool geometry actually starts within the file - I can do it manually by looking, but I would need a way to write a macro to identify where to start pulling data from. I think I've found a few headers used to mark the start of the geometry point values, but still working on it. Either way, I'm unsure if I can do this within Gibbs Macro language

Back when I did the BMP plotter macro, I needed to process the data contained in the BMP file so Gibbcam macro could read it. I wrote a small command line executable in visual basic. The macro builds the command line text adding the filename to process then calls the executable. Once completed, the executable has written a text file with the data written in text strings.

If you can decipher the data in a hex editor and figure out what it is you need and what you want to do with it, you could write one or more VB command line routines to do the processing that is currently beyond the macro instruction set.

[the_cnc_guy]

The only downside to creating macros with these sort of command line executables is sharing to the forum users. There respective IT people will not like users downloading macros with executables. Also, some AV software may block the executables flagging them as suspect.

It would require a certain level of trust between the coder and forum users.

[catohagen]

Maybe there are some internal windows command that could be used, just to find headers and then process the data with macro commands...

I did a quick test with the windows command 'findstr' , first saved a tool as "saved_tool.tlst" and used this command to find and extract the tool comment i set for the tool

C:\findstr /i /n /c:very "C:\Users\cato\Downloads\saved_tool.tlst"
1146: <comment>very large tool</comment>

but I dont know if this command can search for hex data

using an internal tool thats standard in Windows would avoid problems with IT people and antivirus

[0x52 0x4b]

Maybe there are some internal windows command that could be used, just to find headers and then process the data with macro commands...

I did a quick test with the windows command 'findstr' , first saved a tool as "saved_tool.tlst" and used this command to find and extract the tool comment i set for the tool

C:\findstr /i /n /c:very "C:\Users\cato\Downloads\saved_tool.tlst"
1146: <comment>very large tool</comment>

but I dont know if this command can search for hex data

using an internal tool thats standard in Windows would avoid problems with IT people and antivirus

I'm able to accomplish it via python - but so far still working on figuring out how to identify if the data given is a radius or just a xyz for a point. I ended up pulling the data, then drawing a dxf and exporting it. Can always import that dxf into gibbs as the form tool geometry. Also still trying to find a way to easily identify this data within the saved files. I'm able to manually find the area and there are (usually?) pretty clear separators between each pair of points, but I haven't been able to find any sure way to actually identify where each tool geometry starts without manually going over the file.

Not sure if I can even call a python script via gibbs macro language, but at this point it's just a fun project that I've been learning as I go along.

The VB executable is pretty nifty, I might go that route. Just using python for now for ease of programming.