Importing CMM coordinates?

tony_459

Anyone familiar with CMMs (Coordinate Measurement Machines)? I have access to one but it's missing the controller, and now I'm trying to hack it just to generate XYZ point clouds to import into CAD. I'm wondering what format would be best and whether I need a custom featurescript to import into Onshape?

EvanReese

I'd guess you need to convert it to a mesh in another software. I don't personally have experience with this, but Meshmixer or Meshlab seem like they could do it. from there it's just a standard import of something like an STL or OBJ.

romeograham

Don't CMMs just spit out csv data? There are several FS that can pull in csv files...

• 3D CSV (by Onshape's @philip_thomas)https://cad.onshape.com/documents/a5566bc4a7c123d4958fd925/v/74ef42fd67330626670210c7/e/97994fc552ad661c4611715d
• 2D CSV Pattern https://cad.onshape.com/documents/f6170cf71b7e4b9487bf18f2/v/47f6058acd72b32fdc0b0d87/e/3fa5d2bd2f6760ffbe1206ee
• CSV Variables https://cad.onshape.com/documents/75dfbb9091b5bea038398789/v/2d6edbf047281ce828b3923f/e/97a921379d1437bdaef7fcdf

These may help you find out what Onshape wants...then you can figure out your hack to get that data out of your CMM (maybe?).

[edit to correct the 2D CSV Pattern link to point to the original feature, not my copy]

Good luck!

tony_459

Thank you both!

Awesome CSV featurescripts---thanks for the pointers, @romeograham.

My problem right now is pulling the coordinate data from the CMM. No controller, no data. No data, no files. I guess I'm wondering if it's possible to... tap the machine's axis encoders to store their coordinate data in some (probably CSV) file. I know the odds are low that anyone would know how to do this...