Patent ID: 8195310

Claim:
A method for generating a CNC program, used for producing a workpiece on a CNC machine tool, having at least one measurement instruction comprising steps of: opening a program editor for a CNC machine tool program; loading a pre-generated CNC machine tool program into the program editor, the pre-generated CNC machine tool program being a program that is executable by the CNC machine tool; inserting, at a selected point in the pre-generated CNC machine tool program, a selected measurement instruction for performing at least one CNC machine tool measurement operation; wherein the program editor includes representations not in a language of the pre-generated CNC machine tool program, indicative of the at least one measurement operation, and the method comprises further steps of: selecting a representation of the at least one measurement operation required; generating and inserting at the selected point in the pre-generated CNC machine tool program the selected measurement instruction, that is not in the language of the CNC machine tool program, required for performing the at least one measurement operation on the CNC machine tool; and cost-processing the selected measurement instruction to convert the selected measurement instruction into a CNC machine tool language.