Has anyone ever wrote any programs to send commands to the total station?
I'm mainly using Leica at the moment and we have a guidance system on our TBM which sends commands to the total station and receives data which it processes for the navigation so it got me thinking if I could do any basic stuff myself.
I was if anyone has dabbled into this before? Any tips where to start or any documents to read?
I know some programming Python/VBA/Matlab so would like to see if I can get any basics to control the total station from a connected laptop.
I have done a little bit of that with my old Zeiss S10.
The problem is getting documentation of the commands, which for Trimble is very difficult if not impossible. A good book is "Visual Basic Programmer's Guide to Serial Communications 5"
The problem is getting documentation of the commands, which for Trimble is very difficult if not impossible.
I've searched for a little while now and it seems nigh on impossible for Leica too. Might have to try and contact Leica/Hexagon, but doubt they'll want to give too much information out.
Appreciate the book suggestion, I'll have a look.
If they give out that information, they may lose the sale of data collectors to some competitor who adds that compatibility.
Never mind that if the interface was public they might sell instruments to people who prefer a different data collector.
What's the exact model of the instrument? I know someone who has been working on Leica instruments for many decades, though I'd guess he's not available on weekends. I'd like to know about this kind of thing too.
We've got TS16, TS60, TM60 I assume all will be capable of programming as it's all running captivate. The one used for the TBM is a TM60 so 100% is capable of it.
If you can find out anything would be great.
Is Captivate open to customization through third-party apps? You being the third-party, of course. It might be an easier route to go than writing your own software from scratch.
Is Captivate open to customization through third-party apps? You being the third-party, of course. It might be an easier route to go than writing your own software from scratch.
I think so, but not entirely sure. When we set up for the navigation on the TM60 we just selected the port and the baudrate via captivate and the computer then took over. Not sure if its running within or outside I just assumed it was as we changed the settings within captivate but I guess could have done that via windows too? Next time we have the guys who supplied it around I'll quiz them a bit on it.
In the days of the 1200 series, you needed a GeoCom license on the instrument, and then for programming there was a GeoC++ compiler.
