text data to G code?

[zcases]

I have a large file of X, Y and Z coordinates (too many rows of data for Excel!). Does anyone know a good way to add the appropriate G code to each piece of data?

For example.....the raw text file is just the numbers, say, 1000, 5000, 200 (in X, Y, Z order). I want to find a way to have each line look formatted like - G1 X1000 Y5000 Z200.

Any ideas? It would also be good if I could do math on it and get it scaled for my table. Sounds like I need to hire a programmer?

Thanks
Scott

[esmiller]

Question 1: What format is the file in? is it a plain ASCII Text file?

Question 2: What version of Windows are you running? if I recall correctly, Windows98 still contained the QBASIC file in the WINDOWS/COMMAND directory. If I am correct in that, I could whip together a quick program to do whatever you need to the data..

do a search of your system, and see if it contains a file containing QB.EXE or QBASIC.EXE, and we can go from there.. Unfortunately, i have quit programmin, so I keep no compilers installed any longer..

Eddie

OH YEAH .. what is the formatting of the file?

is it, for example:

100,2300,245
126,2234,567

or is it:

100 2300 245
126 2234 567

these two are referred to as Comma Delimited and Space Delimited respectively. There are also formats that place quotes around each value..

[zcases]

Eddy -
1) I believe its a plain ASCII. I can read it with notepad. It is space delimited, and comes into excel nicely, but excel only has about 65K rows and it chops off a lot of the data. I have ~260K rows!
2) I have a bunch of computers and just upgraded them to XP. I cannot find anything with the search "QB". I could power up an old computer with 98 on it later and look there.

[MetLHead]

Scott,

I will put together a program to do this for you and post it later today.

Could you post a sample file?

Regards,
Scott

[zcases]

Geez - fantastic MetLHead. I can't believe the wealth of information on the CNCZone. Two other considerations.......

1)Is there a way to do scaling and offsets on the raw data?
2)This one gets tricky......The way the raw data is sorted.....I either need to put in a line every so often to lift z to go back and begin the next cut (maybe I could tell it to do this every "n'th" line)? Or - is there a way to re-sort the data so the cut can go back and forth? Seems like this would be more difficult. Know what I mean?

I feel like a beggar who is also trying to chose.

[MetLHead]

Scott,

Here it is, version 1.0000 of Point2GCode

Give it a try and let me know if there's anything you need changed.

Regards,
Scott

[zcases]

MetLHead - that is excellent, I am impressed! Is it possible to scale Z with a different value than the x,y, scale? Look for a PM also...........

[MetLHead]

Here's an update for the Points2GCode program. This update adds the Z Scale factor seperate from XY.

Scott

[zcases]

Geez MetLHead your good. I owe you....................

[rweatherly]

MetlHead- What programming language do you use?

[MetLHead]

Originally Posted by rweatherly MetlHead- What programming language do you use?

This was written in Visual Basic. It's based on a file converter template that I use once in a while. I've attached the VB source for anyone who's interested.

Scott

[zcases]

So far I find this works very well. It does exactly what I want, as long as I calculate the offsets and scaling properly it does a great job.