Toolpath Editor

The toolpath editor allows you to manually create or edit an existing toolpath for a weld. It is accessed by right clicking on a weld and selecting either “Create Toolpath” or “Edit Toolpath”. A dialog will pop up similar to that shown below. While you are using the editor, any results will be shown in the main 3D viewer window.

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The green / red editor bar across the top of the dialog corresponds to the length of the weld. Valid portions of the toolpath are green, and invalid portions will be coloured red. You can click and drag along the top of the bar to move the robot position along the weld. You can click below the part to insert a new “control point”, which is a position where you set the position of the robot. The weld path is then interpolated between subsequent control points. You can right click on a control point to remove it.

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Editing Control Points

Once you select a control point, you can edit it using the controls in the “Pose Editor” tab to adjust the robot’s position at that point. Some of these options may not be visible if they are not relevant for your robotic workcell.

  • Along weld moves the control point along the weld path.

  • Travel angle, work angle, torch rotation and stick-out control the torch geometry at that point.

  • Configuration to select the inverse kinematics configuration for the point. This must be the same along the entire toolpath.

  • Positioner to adjust the position of any robot positioner axes (e.g. track, gantry).

  • Workpiece positioner rotation 1 and rotation 2 field control the position of the workpiece rotator.

You can also edit these control points in the “Toolpath Table” tab as shown below. This presents the same data in a tabular form. You can double-click on a cell to edit its value, or select a row and click “Remove” to delete it from the toolpath.

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Tabular view of toolpath control points.

The final tab is the “Wrap Values” tab. For robot joints which have a range greather than 360 degrees, it is possible for there to be multiple solutions. The solution closest to the “Wrap Values” will be used for the toolpath control point.

Applying Changes

Once you have edited the toolpath, you can click the “Save” button to apply this. The planning process will need to be run to finalise planning the rest of the weld (e.g. calibration, motions to and from the weld). Until this is done, the toolpath will be set to a “requires re-planning” status.