Release notes starting November 1st, 2006 Nov 1st, 2006 Changed skewed sections so that the Z value of the point that is computed as being on the skewed plane is used as the section height for that section. Implemented Variable tolerance as a method for LEMIN and LEMAX tolerances. Use LE_VARTOL to define the plus and minus tolerances at the nose point, and MID_VARTROL to define the plus and minus tolerances at the LE_CHANGE locations. Nov 3rd, 2006 Fixed values reported for LEMIN and LEMAX when new variable tolerancing is used. Dec 18th, 2006 Fixed a bug involving calculating edge thicknesses using the POINTS method. Dec 29th, 2006 Fixed bug when using "No Fit" caused program crash. Jan 16th, 2007 Added support to use PC-DMIS PDF printer drivers. Don't select the PC-DMIS printer driver from the choice of printers, but rather check the "Auto Plots to PDF Files" check box on the Reporting tab of the Preferences dialog. Automatic Printouts will then be saved as one PDF files. Any menu options that request a PDF printout will be saved to the same file. Note that the files are originally created as separate files, but are merged when either the document is closed, or Blade is executed. Jan 17th, 2007 Added pdf driver to install. Jan 30th, 2007 Increased resolution of pdf files. 1 Feb 2007 Fixed bug where using Constrained Least Squares and RELTWIST caused Blade to blow up. 12 Feb 2007 Added option to "square off" an end in the nominal editor. Can only deal with one end being square (defined by two points). To square off an end, use 3 points. The first and third are points on the corner. The middle one should be close to the midpoint. The middle point actually gets thrown away, but it's normal vector is used for all the points that are generated on the end. The two corner points should be selected (double click one, and the control double click the other), prior to clicking the "Make Square" button. Note that no attempt is made to define the end. after one or both ends are squared off you must select the points on the corners again and define the ends. 19 Feb 2007 Fixed problem seen when computing zone form nominal. ======================================== Version 3.0 ======================================== 12 Apr 2007 Fixed two point fit from TE to use right offset values (they were swapped). 27 Jul 2007 Increased number of points used when computing points for the LE and TE edges for tolerance curves used by variable tolerances. 6 Aug 2007 Fixed problem with TE width reported by Bell. 14 Aug 2007 Fixed problem where DISABLE did not stick in tolerance file editor. 21 Aug 2007 Fixed problem where TE was not determined correctly for partial section with very small TE ======================================== Version 3.1 ======================================== 29 July 2007 Added new commands MINSTOCK and MAXSTOCk which traverse each section and compute widths in several locations. The widths are spaced evenly along the Mean Camber Line, the number of widths evaluated is defined by the parameter MINSTOCKNUM which is defined in the tolerance file. Stock is calculated as the ActualWidth - NominalWidth. THe minimum value and the maximum value can be toleranced. If either MINSTOCK or MAXSTOCK is used as a calculation, each computed width will be shown on a form plot. The minimum value is annotated with red text and the character #. The maximum value is annotated with blue text and the character *. Added a new fit, Two Point Forge. This is similar to the other two point fits, but also brings into play a Forge Plane Angle. This angle is the angle between the forge plane normal axis and the Y axis, a positive number meaning the forge plane is rotated counter clockwise. This fit will allow translation only along the forge plane normal vector. Rotation will be applied to best align two points on each (nominal and measured) MCL. The points are determined by the nominal shape, moving in from the edges. These positions are translated into distances from the stack point. These distances are used to find two points on the measured MCL. 3 Aug 2007 Added MINSTOCKLE, MAXSTOCKLE, MINSTOCKTE and MAXSTOCKTE. This way the 3 zones can be toleranced differently. Also added some options to the Misc. tab of the flavor file that control how the stock is shown on the form plots. Made a first stab at creating a stk output file. 8 Aug 2007 Changed parameter MINSTOCKNUM to MINSTOCKDIST which is three parameters. the first parameter is the distance between stock checks for the LE, the second parameter is the same, but for the main part of the section, the third parameter is for the TE. 14 Aug 2007 Added ability to control where the LE stock checks start and where the TE stock checks end. LEOFFSET10 and TEOFFSET10 define ratios that are used to define the offsets from the ends. The ratio is applied to the widths at the LE and TE CHANGE positions. If for example, LEOFFSET10 is set to 0.25, then the first stock check will be calculated one quarter of the LECHANGE width away from the nose point. The same logic applies to the TE. the ratios must be numbers between 0.0 and 1.0. If they are not, then the default value of two increments will be used. 25 Aug 2007 Changed it so that LEOFFSET10 and TEOFFSET10 define the value of the offset from the end as the offset itself, rather than a ratio. 7 Sep 2007 Added DEV output for GEI 28 Oct 2007 Added new variable tolerance type, VARFILE, for MINFORM and MAXFORM calculations. This uses the individual point tolerances found in the Nominal File. Points on the upper and lower tolerance curves are constructed by computing the normal vector at each point and creating new points on the normal vectors that are offset by the tolerance values. If both tolerances are set to zero, then the closest nominal points before and after are found. If the before and after points have different tolerances, interpolation is used to create a tolerance for that point using the adjacent toleranced points. Added more controls to the "Set Tols" button in the nominal file editor. Previously you could only assign tolerances to all points. The new dialog allows defining the start point and end point to set a range. Note that if you define a start point with a smaller index than the end point, the points being toleranced will wrap around the end. There is also a frequency option that can be used so that the tolerances being defined are applied only to every n-th point. Added a new option, "Embed in Form Plots" in the Customization tab of the flavor file editor. This option is available only when the Zone Form is set to Nominal. When this is active, the zone form output for a given section will be included in form plots. The embedded form plot will skip any points that are not toleranced. 1 Nov 2007 Added new method to LE_ANGLE and TE_ANGLE for use on SQUARE ends only. This method will compute the tangent vector at the End point (nose point or tail point). It will also compute the chord vector (vector from tail to nose, or from nose to tail). The angle reported will be the angle between the tangent vector and the chord vector. 20 Nov 2007 Fixed problem where point tolerances were sometimes shown at incorrect position on form plots. Fixed problem where nominal zone form points were potentially not being reported correctly in XYZ file. 10 December 2007 Added RELTWIST2 calculation,so a customer can use EXCLUDE on the bestfit for one relative twist calculation and use all points on the best fit for the other. Note that if you are performing a constrained fit, RELTWIST2 is not used, only RELTWIST1 tolerances play a role. 27 Dec 2007 Added EXTREME3 and EXTREME4 calculations. Made it so that when using EXPLODE, it pays attention to "Always Plot Ends". When "Always Plot Ends" is checked, the LE and TE will be included with the CVX and CCV plot, using the same alignment that CVX and CCV are plotted against. The LE and TE close-ups will also be displayed, using different alignments, if they were created for the ends. 14 Jan 2008 Fixed problem where probe compensation was applied in wrong direction. 4 Feb 2008 Added message box to explain failure when Edit Nominal fails Changed fits for LE and TE only to use the first and last points as a seed for square ends rather than the nose/tail point and a point on the MCL. Square ends tend to do funny things to the MCL since they are contradictory to the definition of the MCL. 14 Apr 2008 Added CENTROIDX, CENTROIDY, RELCENTROIDX, RELCENTROIDY, ADJCENTROIDX, ADJCENTROIDY and AREA commands. The CENTROIDS compute the center of gravity of a section. AREA is the area of a section. 29 April 2008 Fixed blow up that occured when trying to edit a flavor that has unknown calculations. 9 May 2008 Added "T" options to the CENTROID calcs. 9 May 2008 Fixed a skewed section issue. 15 May 2008 Fixed problem with special GEI DEV report. 27 May 2008 Added ADJCHDANG calculation. 29 May 2008 fixed a couple of issues with CENTROIDT calculations. 11 June 2008 Fixed BOWT Calculation for Tip Section. 3 July 2008 Added 5 additional best fits (total of 10 now). 3 July 2008 Changed MinMax best fit to allow choosing which sides/ends to use. 16 July 2008 Added option to Tolerance File Editor to define what is and ADJ section. The options are two sections adjacent in the RPT file (the default and original method), two sections adjacent in the NOM file and two sections adjacent in the TOL file where both are "default inspection sections". 24 July 2008 Added custom fit option for a paying customer. 8 August 2008 Fixed problem where printing of CMM reports duplicated last section on some occasions. 12 September 2008 Fixed problem with compensation of skewed sections. 13 September 2008 Made 3.1 a release version. ======================================== Version 3.2 ======================================== 13 September 2008 Started Version 3.2. 17 October 2008 Made it so RELTWIST could use nominal defined in tolerance file ( even though this makes no sense. :-) ). 28 October 2008 Fixed bug with last page being printed too many times for CMM output when printing in landscape mode. 13 November 2008 Added new Width methods, CONVEX_X and CONCAVE_X. These methods find a point on the convex or concave side with a given X value. The surface normal at that point is then used to pierce the opposite side. The width is the distance between the two points. The nominal surface normal is used for the actual calculation because the actual curve might not be smooth. 24 November 2008 Fixed a bug regarding probe compensation when blades have a small number of nominal points. 14 January 2009 Expanded length of calculation name string on CMM and other reports. 9 March 2009 Changed Hasp code to newer version which should support Vista. 9 March 2009 Added Waviness calculations. 26 March 2009 Fixed bug in nominal file editor where when setting tolerances and hit cancel, it made changes anyway. 26 March 2009 Fixed bug where point tolerances on LE/TE plots were use side magnifications. 2 April 2009 Added support to include DIMENSION lines that are embedded in the RPT files. These dimensions are tacked onto the end of the CMM reports. 15 April 2009 Added ability to define variable tolerances in a separate file. The tolerances are define as sets of 2D. Each section that is toleranced defines to curves, a lower tolerance and an upper tolerance. They can be defined in either order. The name of the variable tolerance file should be the same as the nominal file, but using VTL as the extension, so if the name of the nominal files is MyBlade.NOM, then the variable tolerance file would be MyBlade.VTL. Both files should be in the same folder. The format of each section of the file looks like the following: SECTNAME N1 N2 (N1 and N2 are the number of points used to define the two tolerance curves X Y (point 1 of first tol curve) X Y (point 2 of first tol curve) .... X Y (point N1 of first tol curve) X Y (point 1 of second tol curve) X Y (point 2 of second tol curve) .... X Y (point N2 of second tol curve) 1 May 2009 Changed LEPOS and TEPOS calculations that use XAXIS and YAXIS methods. Not sure why but they were returning ABS for Nom and Act calculations. This caused issues for one customer. 7 May 2009 Added ability to include another PDF file with the document when PDF file is output. If a PDF file exists that is in the same folder as the RPT file and has the same filename, except the extension is PDF and file name has an extra 0 at the end, then it will included at the beginning of the PDF output that may be generated. For example, if the RPT file name is PART_XXX_test1_090326_100640.rpt, and the file PART_XXX_test1_090326_1006400.pdf exists (note the extra 0 at the end of the file name), then it will be included at the beginning of the pdf FILE created by blade for this RPT file. 8 May 2009 For Skewed sections, reskewed the measured points prior to reporting them in XYZ (only the pure XYZ file) and IGES formats. 11 May 2009 For Skewed Sections, reskewed the measured points prior to report them in AVG formats. 14 May 2009 Fixed bug with AVG blade in general case. ======================================== Version 3.3 ======================================== 19 August 2009 Ported source code to Dev Studio 2008 11 September 2009 - made reading of variable tolerance files (VTL) more flexible, can now be space or comma delimited. Also changed beginning line of each section to start with the word SECTION to follow convention of NOM and RPT files. So line that defines the beginning of a section now looks like: SECTION SECTNAME N1 N2 (N1 and N2 are the number of points used to define the two tolerance curves) 23 September 2009 - Added option to include form plots on same page as matrix report. To do this, use the "Embedded" Autoprint Plot option and the plots will be included on the one page matrix report. 5 October 2009 - Added ability to analyze sections with both ends being partial. 6 October 2009 - Fixed some issues with font sizes that apparently arose from port to 2008. 6 October 2009 - Added ability to bypass Amyuni methods for concatenating pdf files. Two customers have reported problems where some of the text in the header gets garbled. A minor change was made to initialization of the PDF creation, perhaps this will fix the problem. But if not, Blade will use a batch file to complete the joining of the pdf files if the bat file exists. This bat file must be named JoinPDF.BAT and must reside in the same folder where Blade.EXE was installed. The bat file takes two command line arguments, the first is the folder that contains all the pdf files that are to be joined. The second arument is the common base name of the pdf files that will be joined. This was tested, using freeware, pdftk.exe, which was called by JoinPDF.BAT. To use this, download pdftk.exe and contact Hexagon Metrology for a copy of JoinPDF.BAT. 6 October 2009 - Added new method to width calculations, PERCENT_X. This method picks up a point on the MCL by defining it's percentage of the Chord as measured from the given edge. The value 0.0 would be the position at that edge and 100.0 would be at the opposite edge. Of course 0 and 100 would be bad choices. Pick something in between. The OFFSET values are used to define the percentages. 14 November 2009 - Added waviness calculations for LE, TE and complete section. 16 November 2009 - Added Template option. Description follows: Added the start of a new template. To use the template output you need to do two things. 1. Edit the flavor file to enable template Set the AutoPrint Plot option to be Template. This replaces all other automatic plotting options. 2. Create a template definition file. This should in the same folder and have the same name as the nominal file, but the file extension should be TPL. So if your nominal file name is MyBlade.NOM, then the template file should be named MyBlade.TPL. This template will be used to report every section. If you have different requirements for a section, then it should have it’s own template file and the file name will be the nominal file name, an underscore (‘_’) and the section name. So if MyBlade has a section named A-A which needs its own template, then the name of that template must be MyBlade_A-A.TPL. The format of the template files is given below: A template file is a text file that contains two types of entries. One is a set of modal commands that are used to define what extra properties should be included with each form plot. Each of these settings starts with the key word, SET. The list of SET commands currently supported is: • SET POINTTOL OFF/ON – OFF is the default, controls whether individual point tolerances are displayed. • SET STOCK OFF/ON – OFF is the default, controls whether STOCK Distribution graphics is added to the plots. • SET ZONE OFF/ON – OFF is the default, controls whether Zone Form position labels are added to the plots. • SET WHISKERS OFF/OUT/ON – OFF is the default, controls if and when the deviation whisker labels are plotted. • SET THICKNESS Index – Zero is the default (show none), controls whether any of the thickness calculations are displayed on the plots. • SET SIDEMAG #.#### - Sets the Side Magnification, 0.0 is the default. • SET ENDMAG #.#### - Sets the End Magnification, 0.0 is the default. These are all modal, so when a setting is made, it applies to all plots that follow it until the setting is changed. The second type of entry in the file is a cell definition. Cell definitions contain the cell type as the key word, followed by 4 numbers which define the position and size of the cell on the output. This is defined by 4 numbers, all of which are interpreted as percentages of the output page. The X values range from 0.0 to 100.0, measuring from left to right where 0.0 is the left margin and 100.0 is the right margin. The Y values range f rom 0.0 to 100.0, measuring from top to bottom where 0.0 is the top margin and 100.0 is the bottom margin. These four numbers are always defined in the order XStart XEnd YStart and YEnd (Left, Right, Top Bottom). If more information is required to define the cell, it follows the first five fields. The list of cell definition commands currently supported is: • HEADER XStart XEnd YStart YEnd – This entry will draw the standard Blade Section Header in the defined box. • PLOT XStart XEnd YStart YEnd CALCULATION [Optional Side List] – This entry will draw a form plot. CALCULATION is the name of the blade calculation from which the plot is derived (for example CVMAX). The optional Side list will define which sides to draw in the plot. The choices are CVX, CCV, LE and TE. If no side list is defined, then all sides will be drawn. • ZONEFORM XStart XEnd YStart YEnd – This entry will draw the Zone Form table for the current section (if Zone Form is computed) in the defined box. • CMM XStart XEnd YStart YEnd – This entry will draw the CMM style output for the current section in the defined box. • BESTFIT XStart XEnd YStart YEnd BestFitNumber [Optional Side List] – This entry will output the best fit statistics. You can control which sides are included in the output by supplying the optional side list. If no side list is supplied all sides will be reported. • HEADER XStart XEnd YStart YEnd – This entry will draw the standard Blade Section Header in the defined box. • TEXT XStart XEnd YStart YEnd JUSTIFICATION NumberLines – This entry will output one or more lines of text in the defined box. JUSTIFICATION, which should be LEFT, CENTER or RIGHT is used to define how the text is aligned within the box. NumberLines defines the number of lines of text that are to be output. The lines of text should immediately follow this entry. Note that TEXT boxes do not draw a border, they can be used to add descriptive text to another cell by defining them to overlap other cells. In general cells can overlap, the last defined cell will be displayed as they are drawn in the order that they are defined in the file. There is one more entry that is possible in the template files. Use the key word NEWPAGE to define a page split for multiple page template reports. This word has no modifiers. The following is an example of a template file I was using for testing purposes: HEADER 0 100 0 5 SET WHISKERS OUT SET SIDEMAG 2 PLOT 0 100 5 25 CVMIN CVX SET SIDEMAG 7 PLOT 0 100 25 45 CCMIN CCV SET ENDMAG 5 PLOT 0 50 45 60 LEMIN LE SET WHISKERS ON SET ENDMAG 1 PLOT 50 100 45 60 TEMIN TE TEXT 0 10 5 9 LEFT 1 Left TEXT 90 100 5 9 RIGHT 2 Right Right TEXT 45 55 5 9 CENTER 3 Middle Middle Middle ZONEFORM 0 100 60 80 NEWPAGE BESTFIT 0 100 0 10 1 CVX BESTFIT 0 100 10 20 2 CCV BESTFIT 0 100 20 30 3 LE BESTFIT 0 100 30 40 4 TE CMM 0 100 40 80 TEXT 0 100 80 100 CENTER 5 Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of the party. The quick red fox jumped over the lazy brown dog. Fee Fi Fo Fum, I smell the blood of an Englishman. Will you, will you, will you be my neighbor? This is the end of my report!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 21 November 2009 - Added ability from plot menu to create a best fit form plot and Manually Manipulate Fit. 8 December 2009 - Fixed problem where variable tolerances weren't paying attention to magnification. 26 January 2010 - Fixed problem where sometimes the end of the CMM report wasn't displayed at bottom of screen view. 26 January 2010 - Copied the Compensation tab of the "Edit Preferences" dialog to the "Edit Flavor File" dialog. In parthicular, this allows using different filter spacing for different blade programs. When you edit a flavor file for the first time, the dialog will be populated with the preferences values. When you save the flavor file, these values will be saved and then associated forever with that flavor file. 20 February 2010 - Fixed some issues with new tabbed views. Added option to use either tabbed views or regular vies. Fixed problem with print preview. Fixed problem where edit nominal blew up when one section was missing tail definition. 22 February 2010 - Made change so that when creating an AS output. If all the sections measured have exactly 112 point both in NOM and RPT files then a MA file is created instead. Note that you shoul turn off "remove hooks and spikes" prcessing, otherwise a point may be removed and an AS file will be created instead. 2 March 2010 - Making improvements to compensation algorithms. 2 March 2010 - Restrored display of help file. 8 March 2010 - Added "Radial" option to LEPOS and TEPOS calculations. This is the 2D distance from the origin to the Nose/Tail point. No best fit is applied 10 March 2010 - Fixed problem with plots not printing automatically correctly. Also fixed problem with fonts for side labels. 12 March 2010 - Enabled CHDANG to process STACK + MCL. 8 April 2010 - Added STACKU and STACKV. This is stack reported parallel and perpendicular to the stack line. 20 April 2010 - Changed STACKV to have nominal value of 0. Fixed an issue with probe calibration 6 May 2010 - Made Matrix report draw with larger text. 14 May 2010 - Fixed error in ADJSTACKT calculation 19 May 2010 - Fixed problem with two point fits that use offset points referenced from stack 18 September 2010 - Modified probe compensation, fixed a couple of issues. 4 November 2010 - Fixed problem with Max Thickness calculation when that thickness was close to the end of the blade 16 December 2010 - Fixed problem where points were sometimes ordered backwards, which causes a few problems, most notably probe compensation in wrong direction. 21 December 2011 - Fixed a problem with PERCENT_X calculations of widths.