[Peter Shryock]

I am using Vectric Aspire software to handle our STL file toolpath generation. How it manages 3D toolpaths is by flattening the image onto a plane with a depth map, then it wraps it about the X or Y axis, using X or Y commands to rotate the part.

In RoboDK, would there be any way to position the spindle head perpendicular to the axis of rotation, then import a toolpath which makes the turntable rotate with X commands instead of the spindle head moving linearly along X?

In my RoboDK screenshots, the wide toolpath is exported with a simple GCode post processor, and the toolpath generated on a single plane is exported with a post processor that wraps X values about the Y axis.

I use a Kuka KRC2 controller.

[Olivier]

Have you tried the smart optimization options in the curve follow project settings?

[Peter Shryock]

Hey Olivier.
Sadly, smart optimization is not the solution I require. In fact, I made contact with the software team of Vectric Aspire and they told me I was trying to make the software do something it is not intended to do. Their software only handles 3 axis applications, so it will never be able to export into RoboDK a 360 degree toolpath that RoboDK can use, which is why the only two toolpath options that show up in RoboDK are wrong. It should result in a toolpath that resembles a horse head knight chess piece. But, as we can see from the green lines, we either get a wide and distorted cut, or a line with some bumpy depth.

The only way I could even think of this being resolved with this software, would be to have a different machine that only has XAZ or AYX.
Thank you for the help though.

[Albert]

If you can provide a sample RDK project file and a sample NC file such as APT or G-code it would greatly help us help you.

We prepared the example attached "Turntable example keeping TCP position" that shows how you can drive a turntable making sure the turntable keeps the TCP static with respect to the robot base. If you uncheck the option "Keep Pos." the turntable axis will move so that the change of orientation of the Tool Z axis is minimized. RoboDK will never alter the position of the Z axis of the tool because it is the cutting axis. The robot machining parameters allow you to customize all the other degrees of freedom that are redundant (such as rotation around the Z axis of the tool, moving the turntable, etc).

I attached a sample project we once did for a customer where you could run the script "APT Calculate Radial Normals", it would ask you to provide an APT/TAP file and it would filter the ijk normals of all the GOTO commands to calculate the normal (ijk) based on the XYZ position of the tip of the tool with respect to the turntable root. In the script you'll see this formula takes care of this magic:

Code:

if line.startswith("GOTO/"):
xyzijk = str_2_list(line)
x, y,z = xyzijk[:3]
i,j,k = normalize3([x,y,0])
fout.write("GOTO/ %.4f, %.4f, %.4f, %.5f, %.5f, %.5f\n" % (x,y,z,i,j,k))
#fout.write(line + '\n')

We have many other scripts that can also help you project patterns on surfaces and extract normals, average them and more. If you can provide more details we can help you better and we may be able to do everything directly from RoboDK.