Orientation programming (ori.*)

In the case of 5-axis machining with active complete transformation, the Cartesian coordinates are programmed either in a point/Euler angle representation or in a point/direction vector representation.

The orientation is specified by means of the address letters A/B/C or also I/J/K.

In the basic setting, the point/Euler angle representation is active in the NC channel (orientation specified via the rotation angles A, B, C) and, typically, two rotation angles are sufficient for 5-axis machining. All three rotation angles are typically used only for machines with six axes (e.g. robots) to define the manual coordinate system.

In CAD/CAM systems, the coordinates of a workpiece are usually stored in vector representation and, also in the automatically generated NC programs, the axis coordinates are represented in vector notation.

To enable direct execution of such NC programs, it is possible to set by means of the following channel parameters whether the values programmed with A,B,C or I,J,K are to be interpreted as angle values or as vector components.

Alternatively, the default setting set in the channel parameters can be modified at any time in the NC program by means of a corresponding NC command [PROG - command #ORI].