We are pleased to announce the release of the new version of the HAL Robot Programming & Control plugin for Grasshopper.
** HAL 5, compatible with Rhino 4 and 5 and 0.9x or above Grasshopper versions, is proposing an extremely versatile set of tools (+600functionalities,subdividedin154*components) offering you the possibility to simulate, program and monitor ABB, KUKA and Universal Robots machines.
This version is proposing a new highly flexible workflow based on “toolpath” objects allowing you to use all the powerful tools that HAL embeds, independently from the complexity of your robot process. It is then possible to combine, edit, and organize complex operations on massive amounts of objects with only a few clicks, while keeping a clean and lossless structure of machine movements. These new objects are also generating an advanced and customizable representation of the robot process, including the target orientations, approximation zones, interpolation attributes, position names, Digital Ouptut values and channels, simulation of mechanical tools and parts manipulation, preview of stocks of material, etc.
With HAL 5, it is also possible to optimize the size of your programs by choosing the declaration syntax to be used in the post-processor in ABB RAPID, KUKA KRL and Universal Robots URSCRIPT. Advanced programming and IO management functionalities have also been translated in these 3 languages to allow you to switch from a language to another by a simple “right-click” on any component.
In addition to these new global updates, some advanced functionalities have been added or improved for ABB robots: the HAL to ABB Controller component, allowing for program uploading, real-time control and data streaming has been entirely redesigned to reach a minimal communication latency (approx.30ms), and has new multi-threaded monitoring features to analyze joint positions, TCP position, digital IO values and program execution in real- time.
As an educational and research-oriented package, HAL 0.05 is extensively documented: right-click on any component to instantaneously access a selection of comprehensive annotated examples, or to start a tutorial search on YouTube.
HAL 5, developed by Thibault Schwartz, is available on Food4Rhino and the HAL website.
*For more informations about these features and their compatibility with your machine, see this page.
Posted Feb 06, 2014 by Carlos Perez on Rhino News, etc.