The check boxes related to the Positive Reporting area control the reporting of features to the negative side of the origin. With positive reporting, features that would normally have negative values are always printed with positive values.
The X, Y, and Z check boxes determine on which axis (or axes) PC-DMIS displays positive numbers.
The All Data option tells PC-DMIS to flip the measured and nominal values of the selected axis (or axes) and to display any negative numbers for nominal axes as positive numbers.
The Deviations Only option tells PC-DMIS to flip only the deviations of the selected axis (or axes) when the nominal values of axes are negative numbers.
When you select these check boxes, PC-DMIS inserts a POSITIVEREPORTING command into the measurement routine at the current cursor position. This command has the following format in the Edit window:
POSITIVEREPORTING/ a, b, c, TOG1
Where:
a = X when you select the X check box, or blank if you clear the X check box.
b = Y when you select the Y check box, or blank if you clear the Y check box.
c = Z when you select the Z check box, or blank if you clear the Z check box.
TOG1 = ALLDATA or DEVONLY depending on whether you selected the All Data or Deviations Only option.
The X, Y, and Z direction may each have positive reporting turned on in any combination of the three. You can use multiple POSITIVEREPORTING commands within the same measurement routine, and PC-DMIS displays any dimensions that are in the measurement routine using the POSITIVEREPORTING command that precedes the dimensions. If no POSITIVEREPORTING command exists in the measurement routine, PC-DMIS reports all dimensions with the options turned OFF in the X, Y, and Z directions.
The following diagram demonstrates how the tolerances are also affected by the positive reporting options:
Positive Reporting affecting tolerances
A = 0.3 +tol in X
B = 0.1 -tol in X
C = 0.2 deviation in X
D = Point 1
E = Point 2
F = 1.0 nominal
Purpose of Positive Reporting
Positive reporting allows you to report features in a symmetrical manner, so that, regardless of which side of the origin the feature exists, deviations away from the origin are considered positive, and deviations toward the origin are considered negative.
Thus, in the diagram above, both Point1 and Point2 display positive deviations when positive reporting in the X axis. This also means, however, that:
plus tolerances are applied away from the origin.
minus tolerances are applied toward the origin.
Migrating Older Measurement Routines
When migrating measurement routines from an older version of PC-DMIS (such as 3.7) to version 4.x or higher, you may have a problem with the tolerance band being flipped when you use Positive Reporting in your dimensions and you use variables to insert the tolerance values into the PLUS and MINUS tol fields. The UseLegacyPositiveReporting entry, located in the Option section of the PC-DMIS Settings Editor, lets you use the legacy positive reporting in these cases. This makes it so that PC-DMIS does not flip the tolerance values.