Watch Windows
SA’s watch windows are live readouts of measurement data. You can view the coordinates of an instrument’s measurement, watch the live delta transformation between two objects as they are moved, watch the deviation of a probe from a nominal surface, and more. This enables real-time assembly operations, in which you can watch a moving object’s positional error in real-time and make corrections live. It also permits easy tool and fixture building, because you can watch a feature’s position in real-time and check it as you make adjustments to the tool.
A typical watch window is shown below. Depending on the type of watch window being viewed, you may be seeing raw coordinates (X/Y/Z values) or deviations (dX/dY/dZ values). Each value is displayed on a separate row in the window. The window may be resized or even maximized as necessary for easier viewing from a distance—the text will expand to fill the available window. You can open as many simultaneous watch windows as you’d like--they will all up- date automatically.
By default, watch windows (like almost everything in SA) show their data relative to the active coordinate frame. So an X value is the value in the working frame’s X axis, and a dZ value is the delta along the working frame’s Z axis. Settings for a given type of watch window are saved—meaning that if you, for instance, hide the X delta in a specific type of watch window, that value will still be hidden the next time you display that type of watch window.
How to Add a Watch Window
Watch windows are all about viewing the live readings of an instrument. So the first step is to connect your instrument and configure it to send updates to SA. Most instruments will always be sending position updates but some may need to be told to send updates.
With a live instrument you can add a watch window in either of 2 ways:
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For most applications simply right-click on the instrument, point or object you wish to monitor and select Add Watch Window from the menu.
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Watch windows are also available through the menus.