Okay, I've realised I still have part of the original problem, and in order to explain this I need to tell you some more about the machine:-
It's basically a 2.5d plotter, working from artwork in photoshop that's had a grid applied to it to turn it into a series of thin parallel lines. The jpeg file with these lines are then vectorised and turned into hgpl in the program I currently run (R2V). This involves x, y and z axes, as the z axis controls pen up/ pen down From there it should be easy to send that through a program that converts the hgpl into g code (not tried to yet), where, as I said earlier in this post, the paint is only pumped during horizontal strokes (x axis only, no y or z to interpolate.) Why? it's just easier that way, I know that it works from running an old Roland plotter for this a few years ago.
The problem is, of course, that my g code will then only contain code for the x, y, and z axes. I still have to generate the code that tells the a axis (pump) how many steps to take while the x axis does it's thing. Spindle contorl would have been so much easier, I could just tel Cam Bam or whatever to only switch the spindle on when the z axis is in 'pen down' position. Oh well.
So it's back to my question about how to write an app that does that. (See earlier post for my crude program idea!)
Should I save the g code as .txt, and make a macro somehow to do that in microsoft word or some other text editor? Wild guess...
Can anyone give me some pointers on how to do this properly?
Ta,
Richard B