User`s guide

Location Variables
Locations can be specified in two ways in V+: transformations and precision points.
A transformation is a set of six components that uniquely identifies a location in Cartesian
space and the orientation of the motion device end-of-arm tooling at that location. A
transformation can also represent the location of an arbitrary local reference frame.
A precision point includes an element for each joint in the motion device. Rotational joint
values are measured in degrees; translational joint values are measured in millimeters.
These values are absolute with respect to the motion device's home sensors and cannot be
made relative to other locations or coordinate frames.
Coordinate Systems
The following figure shows the world coordinate system for an Adept SCARA robot and an
Adept Cartesian robot. Ultimately, all transformations are based on a world coordinate
system. The V+ language contains several instructions for creating local reference frames,
building relative transformations, and changing the origin of the base (world) coordinate
frame. Therefore, an individual transformation may be relative to another transformation, a
local reference frame, or an altered base reference frame.
Different robots and motion devices designates different locations as the origin of the world
coordinate system. See the user's guide for Adept robots or the device module
documentation for AdeptMotion VME systems to determine the origin and orientation of the
world coordinate frame.
Location Variables
V+Language User's Guide, v17.0
Page 166