When you access an attached measurement routine, you often want to use data from that measurement routine. When you reference this data, you must reference the pointer (or variable ) that contains the location of your measurement routine.
Suppose you're attaching TEST_A.prg to your current measurement routine. Your attach command would look something like this:
CS1=ATTACH/C:\PCDMISW\TEST_A.PRG, Machine=
EQUATE/LOCAL ALIGNMENT = A1, ATTACHED ALIGNMENT = A1
Notice the pointer, CS1. This pointer is used to extract data from the attached measurement routine.
Now, suppose you wanted to display the measured X value for feature F1 from TEST_A.prg inside your current measurement routine. You would use a statement like this.
COMMENT/OPER,"The X value for F1 from the attached measurement routine is:"
,CS1:F1.X
The code, CS1:F1.X, essentially tells PC-DMIS to look at TEST_A.prg, find feature F1, and display the X value. This is the way pointers are referenced inside PC-DMIS.
PC-DMIS also lists features from an attached measurement routine in the Construction or Dimension dialog box. PC-DMIS will display the attached measurement routine’s ID pointer within the Feature List box. A plus sign (+) appears to the left of the pointer. Clicking this plus sign expands or collapses a view of all the features in the attached measurement routine. After you expand the view to show all the features of the attached measurement routine, you can select any of those features to use in the construction or dimension process.
You cannot select the attached routine’s pointer. You can only select the expanded IDs associated with the pointer.