Instructions for creating Reference files causes problems

[Christopher Arellano]

Sabine and I (Texas Chris) found two issues with creating your own reference file.

1.We created the 4 shapes and point numbers as outlined and saved it as .csv. But you cannot load a .csv as a reference file [XMA looks for a .ref file].

Either the instructions need to be improved (right now it says: "The References file must also be a .csv file:") or the program needs to allow the user to load a .csv file. I (Sabine) would prefer the first, because creating a .ref is an additional step (it's not a common file format and you have to change the file extension and not just the name).

2. When creating the file (in excel) we put the name of the "charms" in one row and the corresponding numbers in a second row, resulting in a file that included , (comma) as separators. That crashes XMA lab once you switch from undistortion to calibration. Since the instructions are kind of vague on that point, we should also specify the format a bit better (or tell xma to ignore the commas).

With kind regards,

Sabine and Texas Chris

[Elizabeth Brainerd]

Good catch! I changed the instructions to read: A "References" file is also required. The References file identifies four points that are marked with lead shapes, such as circle, rectangle, triangle, pentagon (sometimes known as lucky charms) in the calibration cube. The References file must be a plain text file separated by spaces with the extension .ref

It would be possible to allow a comma separated file with .csv extension. But I think it is better to keep all .ref files with the .ref extension to avoid confusion. So maybe a compromise is to allow comma separation but require .ref

[Elizabeth Brainerd]

Good catch! I changed the instructions to read: A "References" file is also required. The References file identifies four points that are marked with lead shapes, such as circle, rectangle, triangle, pentagon (sometimes known as lucky charms) in the calibration cube. The References file must be a plain text file separated by spaces with the extension .ref It would be possible to allow a comma separated file with .csv extension. But I think it is better to keep all .ref files with the .ref extension to avoid confusion. So maybe a compromise is to allow comma separation but require .ref

[Christopher Arellano]

Thanks Beth. I'm glad you resolved the issue. By the way, XMA lab is awesome. So much more advanced than the Matlab version. It makes me more confident in my digitizing results.

All the best,

Chris

[Sabine]

Thank you, Beth.

I like the compromise, since .ref files are easy to find even in large folders since everything else gets grayed out.

[Christopher Arellano]

Thanks for sharing.