JavaScript GCode Rotator V0.1b (2005 04 06)

JavaScript GCode Rotator V0.1b (2005 04 06)

Instructions

CNC Machines and GCode

What will this script do

What is this script useful for

1. Joggle your machine to a reference point on the object (e.g. if it's a PCB board to drill, align your driller with a pad to drill)
2. Tell the script reference Point 1 coordinates on GCode (i.e. the coordinates for that point in the GCode program) and on Machine (i.e. the coordinates for that point displayed in machine's or controller software's LCD displays).
3. Joggle your machine to a second reference point on the object. Try to use a point far away from the first one both along X and along Y axis.
4. Tell the script reference Point 2 coordinates on GCode and on Machine.
5. Please note that the script auto-calculated DeltaX, DeltaY, Angle of Rotation and Resizing Factor you need.
6. If there weren't scaling issues but only rotation & offset ones, the computed resize factor should be very close to 1. Probably it's not exactly 1 due to Pc's finite arithmetic (numbers rounding issues) and machine's steps or your eyes finite resolution in pointing the second reference point by joggling. You can just click on "Rotation" check box, so that only rotation and no resizing will be performed on your program, and resizing will be considered to be exaclty 1.
7. Copy/Paste your original GCode on the left TextArea
8. Click on the Go! Button and watch your modified GCode on the right Textarea as is being generated by the script.
9. Wait for the completion message "No errors" or "Errors at lines#".
10. If there are errors, correct them and click on the Go! Button again.
11. Copy/Paste your new GCode in your controlling program.

JavaScript

Known issues (Will be fixed in next versions)

1. The script considers all coordinates as absolute ones. If your program uses relative coordinates, please convert them to absolute with other programs prior to running this script on it. If you don't, the script will mess up your program
2. The parser is very simple, and will consider any string containing exactly one X and one Y as a valid command with coordinates to translate. This means, for example, that a script line like "xrays are useful", wich happens to contain exactly one x and one y, will be misinterpreted as a correct GCode and messed up by my script into "xNaNsNaN are useful", where NaN stays for "Not a Number", the predefined JavaScript value for non-number constants forced to be treated as numbers. In such cases, no errors will be reported, because the implemented simple parser at the moment doesn't check for errors.
3. The script will not handle G command with single axis movements, i.e. GCode lines with only X or Y specified (such movements after rotating coordinates would convert in both X and Y movements, but my script cannot handle them at the moment). The script will leave those lines unchanged but will report as errors lines in which there is a X without Y specified or vice-versa, and will invite you to explicitily specify the missing coordinate for these movements, by manually modifing your GCode program, so that the script can process it correctly.
4. The parser expects one single command (dealing with X and Y coordinates) on each line, so if your code contains more than one command per line, add carriage returns to your code.
5. If there's invalid data on the textfields (i.e. not numeric data) expect the script to produce unpredictable results and eventually mess up your code.
6. The script supports only dots . and not commas , as the decimal separator. You may want to preprocess and postprocess your GCode with a text editor's find and replace to work around this.
7. The script will produce GCode only 3 digits after decimal point. This has been chosen becouse no CNC machine (afaik) is able of more precision and most GCode interpreters cannot recognize more than 3 digits after decimal point.

Learn more about the way the script works

1. Offset (Delta) amount will be auto-calculated if you specify Reference point 1 coordinates on CNC Machine, and this is the easyest way to calculate how much offset you need. However you can work the opposite way: specify the Offset (Delta) you need, and have Ref. point 1 coordinates on CNC machine calculated by the script, just check the checkbox you prefer
2. Please note that even if you don't need offset adjustment, Ref point 1 coordinates on GCode program must be specified to serve as center of rotation and scaling, if you are using these two features. This means that rotation will be calculated around Ref. point 1 and not origin
3. You can specify (or let script compute) angles in radiants or degrees, and can have them converted into each others by simply clicking on the corresponding radio-buttons.
4. Providing coordinates (both on GCode files and on machine) for a second reference point is the easyest way to auto-calculate the amount of rotation and scaling you need. If you prefer, you may however specify directly rotation degrees and scaling factor.
5. Please note that positive rotation angles are counterclockwise, negative ones are clockwise.
6. Please note that Resize factor cannot be zero or infinite (common error is to tell the script to trasform the same Ref point's coordinates, specified for Ref#1 and Ref#2, into 2 different points: obviously it's impossible). This is always true, regardless if you are using a multiplying or dividing-by factor.
7. Always use a dot . as the decimal separator (never use ,) both in GCode and on TextFields. You can preprocess and post-process code with a text editor's search-and-replace functions to work around this.

Greetings