Select Tip toolbar
You can use the Select Tip toolbar (View | Toolbar | Tip Selection) to insert tips (for star probes) and tip angles (for configurations supporting probe head angles and wrist rotation) into your measurement routine on the fly. These can be constrained to allow only existing calibrated tips; or, you can insert any new angle that your probe hardware supports without having to go through the traditional route of accessing the Probe Utilities dialog box and then clicking on the Add Angles button.
For example, suppose you are learning a feature in Offline mode, but a fixture holding the part in place won't allow the probe to measure the feature unless you use a different angle. Use this toolbar to quickly visualize and define the desired angle, which allows a much simpler workflow than the traditional procedure. To do this, type the desired angles (or use the up and down increment arrows). With each change in any of the edit boxes, PC-DMIS dynamically inserts the tip or tip angle into your measurement routine and appropriately draws the probe in the Graphic Display window.
The available items are as follows:
Check box - This check box constrains the toolbar, which allows you to select only calibrated tip angles. With this item selected, if you increment one of the A, B, or C angles, it chooses the closest calibrated tip angle and inserts it into the measurement routine.
If you clear this check box, you can define any tip angle increment that is valid for your probe type.
# box - This box represents the tip number. It applies to probe types that don't have a rotating head or wrist but have multiple physical tips instead. For example, a star probe has five probe tips, each represented by a tip number. Type or select that number in this box to insert the associated TIP command into the measurement routine.
A, B, C boxes - These angle boxes define the A, B, and C angles for the probe head and wrist. Click the arrows to the right of each box to increment or decrement the respective angle to the next valid value.
Movie Demo
The small movie below demonstrates how this locates and selects the proper tip angle for measuring a hole on the front side of the demo block. It shows that you can dynamically modify the tip angle by clicking on the A and B edit boxes: