The Program tab allows you to customize settings related to robot programs and how program files are generated.

Options Menu - Image 11

Check Update program paths when the station is loaded to recalculate robot programs. This operation will display program issues and show the programs that have issues with a warning sign . This has the same effect as right clicking each program and selecting Check Path (F5). Uncheck this option to load projects faster.

Checking Hide program path by default will not display the program paths when new programs are generated. Right click a program and check/uncheck Display path respectively to show/hide the yellow path of the robot TCP.

Use Tool/Frame numbers for numbered Tools/Frames will use the corresponding register numbers of a tool/reference frame instead of updating the tool and reference frame poses on the robot controller. This is available for robot controllers that mostly use numbered registers instead of variables. This behavior can also be customized using post processors.

It is possible to force a specific target Output for joint/linear movements on program generation, by imposing joint or Cartesian data. By default, RoboDK will use the target settings (joint coordinates for joint targets and Cartesian coordinates for Cartesian targets).

By default, RoboDK will create new targets as Cartesian targets, that means that if a reference frame is moved, the position of the robot to reach that target will be different. It is possible to select Joint targets to impose absolute targets that do not change depending on the reference/tool changes.

Select Skip program calls that don’t exist in the station to ignore generating programs.

Tip: Skip speed changes in programs allows to quickly simulate and generate dry run programs that are supposed to take a long time to execute.

When a reference frame is used in a program (using the Set Reference Frame instruction) and that reference is moved afterwards, the robot movement is altered. By default, the set reference frame instruction will place the robot reference at the original location without altering the station reference.

Note: This setting only applies to automatically generated programs (such as milling programs).

Tip: It is common to create a program that uses a specific reference frame. If the reference frame is moved and the program is re-executed it is possible to use the updated reference frame by setting this setting to Always update the station. In that case, it is not guaranteed that the program will be feasible the same way it was originally created.

Limit the maximum number of lines per program can be checked to specify how many lines a program will have at most. This will split a long program in sub programs and will generate a main program that runs these smaller programs sequentially. Robot controllers have limited capacity and can run programs of a certain size. Except for specific/older robot controllers, most controllers can handle 5000 lines in one program.

Finally, specific settings are available for specific robot brands when using built in post processors. On the other hand, custom post processors allow customizing or imposing certain behavior right before the program is generated.