Auto Measure Points provides an automated means to tell a motorized instrument to measure a set of targets on its own. This can be done once or repeatedly. To perform the Auto Measure, select Auto Measure Points. Select the group of points to measure and the Auto Measure dialog in will appear.
The Auto Measure Dialog is organized into 4 sections as follows:
Orient
An instrument must be aligned to the reference points in order to perform an automatic measurement, which is based upon a point at, find, and measure process. It will be told to point at the nominal points in order to find the actual points to measure. Unless already aligned, it can be helpful to mark at least 3 of the points as Anchor Points. This is done by right-clicking on the row of the point of interest and changing the Status on that point in the Measurement section to define it as an anchor point. The Measure Anchor Pts. and Locate Instrument buttons can then be used.
Measure
The measure process is initiated and configured from the measurement section of the dialog.
Single Point. By pressing this button a single measurement will be taken at the current reflector/target location and compared to the currently selected target in the Measurement Section. This can be helpful in measuring anchor points as well.
Entire Pass. Pressing the Entire Pass button will trigger a full set of measurements of each of the points included in the Measurement Section.
Next Pass. This function will clear the prior measurement results and reset focus to the first point in the list.
Multi-Pass. This function allows all the points to be measured repeatedly for a specified number of passes and allow for a time delay to be added before each measurement or between passes
Stop. Stop controls are available in both the Orient and Measure sections in order to exit a measurement process when de- sired.
Options
A selection of options are available for the auto measure process. These options can be defined as default by using the Right-click option on the Apply button. These include:
Auto Increment Group. The option increments the point group each time a pass is complete such that passes are saved separately rather than additional observations on the same points.
Halt on Failed Target. When marked the auto measure process stops when a target fails.
Halt on Tolerance Error. When marked the auto measure process stops when a point is out of tolerance.
Mark Failed Targets. This option marks targets as failed and will not attempt to re-measure them in subsequent passes.
Append All Passes to File. Record points to a specified .csv formatted ascii file.
Group for data. Name of the point group used to record the observations.
Tolerance. Tolerance used for each point.
Watch Window. Open a watch window displaying point to point deviations between the nominal and measured points.
Create Event. Saves the currently displayed measurement window as an event.
The measurement section of the dialog displays the current status of the last pass through the nominal points. This includes both the nominal, actual, and delta statics in a tabular form just as it will appear in an event or ascii export.
The active point (row) is highlighted and the highlighted point will also be the target the instrument measures if a single point measurement is taken. Points can also be marked as anchor points and Ignore such that they are not measured in subsequent passes.