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Excel reporting for Visual Fair import

So I've been having problems conveying to the engineers at IPI Visual Fair my exact requirements for a DMIS parser to import CMM data into Visual Fair, and I was wondering if anyone had run across the same situation. I had a parser developed for Calypso no problem, but in Calypso each characteristic has the ability to assign it's own "comment". These comments can be whatever you need them to be, including multiple instances of the same comment across multiple characteristics. I had them work out a parser where, say I have 8 holes and need FCF position reported. The "bubble number" on the drawing for this feature is (1). So for Calypso I can generate 8 separate characteristics for position, enter the number 1 in all 8 comment fields, and the parser will sort through all items numbered 1 reporting only the worst outage to satisfy the single DRF callout on the report. I'm trying to get something similar worked out for DMIS, but I'm having a hard time with the guy at Visual Fair since he insists the only place to enter the "bubble numbers" in DMIS would be in the name of the characteristic, i.e., instead of LOC1, I would enter the bubble number only as the name. The problem lies with DMIS requiring all characteristics to have a "unique identifier", therefore I can't fill in 8 LOC dimensions with bubble number 1 and have it sort them using the same logic. I also haven't found a way to utilize Xact Dimensioning with any success. Anyone else have any experience with these guys, or any insight to another location within the DMIS programming that can have repeat entries and will show up on an Excel export? Thanks in advance.


Chris
  • So, use a Min/Max routine for each 'grouping'.
    Char 86 has 18 features,
    Report the 18 features then find the Min/Max value of those outputs.
    Insert value to a Generic feature, output generic feature in an output named Char_86....
    Would this help you and the developer get around your current issue?
  • I'm not sure what you mean. I'm not very good with DMIS at all. I'm a fairly remedial user haha. This was assigned to me to figure out, and I'm having quite a time with it. I'm not even sure what a generic feature is quite honestly. I'm more or less looking for an unrestricted alphanumeric field I can enter data in within the DMIS code that will allow for multiple instances of the same data to be applied to multiple characteristics and export to a designated field in Excel.
  • Are you the site's PC-DMIS programmer or are you just there to aide in retrieval and review of data?
  • For groups of dimensions you could either embed something unique in the name or use a comment. A dimension name of LOC1~1, LOC2~1 for example. Searching for the tilde character is easy and using everything following it as the characteristic name should work. Adding a comment prior to groups of dimensions would also work but it should be recognizable so it doesn't interfere with actual comments. Something like 'CHARTSC:1' where the parser looks for the text 'CHARSTC:' should be safe. Neither of these are difficult to implement.

    I have had success parsing those crazy XactMeasure dimensions. It is not easy and is a moving target (different versions of PC-DMIS can be different). I can send you some samples (in C++) along with a general explanation of why things were done a certain way and a working program. Send me a PM (use the other forum if possible).
  • I went through some of the same stuff with IPI, they couldn't make a parser do what I wanted, then I started experimenting with different ways to label stuff in my CMM programs.

    I import data into IPI from Metrolog and PC DMIS. If I have multiple instances of a dimension, I give a range or report each instance. Depending on how I want to report it, I have to adjust the way I label things in Metrolog or PC Dmis. In PC DMIS if I want each instance reported, I label them loc 1-1, loc 1-2, loc 1-3 etc...., If I want the range, I label them loc 1, loc 1, loc 1, ......adding an extra space in each proceeding label. I tried doing the way Roundog says loc1-1, loc2-1, ....but PC DMIS wouldn't let me do that. In metrolog, I can and that is the way I label things there.

    Bottom line, try different labels,you might get it to do what you want.