Re: Digitizing arm - CMM

James P Crombie wrote:

>I have been following this thread a bit and would be interested
>in any results and willing to lend a hand in it. I am not much
>use with programing and electronics, although I can follow a
>circuit diagram and have built a CCD camera for my telescope. But
>I am a machinist with lots of available machines to work with and
>own a copy of Rhinocad. Aside from the mechanical part of the
>arm you are going to need an interface box that can convert the
>signals of the 4-6 encoders and either store the points for
>export to rhino or have a little program that will introduce the
>points to rhino as they are taken. There are several little
>programs that people have designed for Rhino like the calculator
>add-on Rhinolator. It can generate a group of random points and
>then send them to Rhino and make a surface from them. With the I/O
>toolkit available for Rhino I guess that a knowledgeable person
>could make up the interface program( but that not me :-)

The interface is covered, don't worry about that. I was interested
in something else you said though. Is it possible in import a series
of points into Rhino and have them assembled into a solid? If so,
could you pass along the file format info? Gathering the points is
easy enough, but I was concerned about what to do with them when I
was done. If I can just store them into a text file, we're in
business. Well, after I slap together an arm to experiment with, and
write the software, and buy the parts for a 6-axis encoder board,
and... and... :)

-Tom Kulaga