Create GOM Inspect XML from any CSV file

Have you ever found it inconvenient to import features to the free edition of GOM Inspect? As you may know, the free edition does not allow you to edit Import Templates. You are forced to format the input file in a certain way. You will also need to create and load files separately for elements and inspections.

Don’t let this limitation slow you down. I wrote Node-RED flow to automatically convert all your CSV files (in your column format) to the GOM XML file.

GOM’s Inspection Exchange Format is a first-class citizen for data transfer in GOM software. It supports the import of geometry primitives, dimensions, GD&T elements, and even meshes.

Node-RED flow

Go to node-red library and to import the flow.

If you not yet familiar with Node-RED, jump into my previous blog post where I go over what Node-RED is and a sample setup.

Both Node-RED and this flow are free and open-source. You can use and modify it to fit your specific use case. In the current version, it only supports the import of geometry primitives. I did not need to load other types of elements. However, reach out to me if you are interested in working together on adding more functionality to this flow.

Notes

There are only two nodes you need to modify:

Start node - enter the path to directory with CSV files.

Mapping template - You need to specify how columns in your CSV map to GOM elements, i.e., x field will map to CSV column called “coord-x.”

Testing

Use the following test file to test and learn how this flow works. Generated XML was tested on GOM Inspect 2019 and 2020.

Possible use cases

Loading CSV is just one of the use cases. We could easily add database node and pull features from the database and save them to GOM XML.  We could also support other file types or integrate them with automated measurement collection workflow.

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