For a document to be recognised as a standard, it needs to be ratified by an appropriate international body. For example the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), ]Deutsches Institut für Normung](https://www.din.de), The Japanese Industrial Standards Committee (JISC), and the American National Standards Institute (ANSI). Many other countries have their own national organisations setting local standards and contributing to the specifications of international standards. Then there are defacto “standards” such as zip (file compression) or tiff (image file format) which have been adopted at a global level by major players in the market.

When a researcher assesses the operation of two or three control systems and publishes a report1 on his (or her) findings, this does not constitute a standard. When this report is then used to specify the framework2 for an internal project, it is still not a standard, regardless of who is providing the funding. It is unfortunate that some indivduals have been suggesting that the RS274NGC-Ver33 document is a “standard” based purely on the originating source (The National Institute of Standards and Technology).

As a reference document describing the language used by CNC machine tools in the late 1980s and early 1990s, it has its uses. Ideed, all three documents can be found in citations of any number of published theses over the last 25 years. Out side of the core commands, manufacturers of both the controls and the machines have seen fit to add their own custom codes and implement any number of canned cycles (some confined to the G81 to G89 range). Very little has been incorporated in to official published standards from ISO/DIN/ANSI. So if one is looking for a “standard” to implement a control around, you may as well pick a manual from Haas, Fanuc, Heidenhain, or any other manufacturer and run with it. But you may run in to copywrite and intelectual property issues if you copy certain features. And do yourself, and everyone else a favour and do not call it a standard.

RS274NGC-Ver3 is NOT a standard.

At best, a description of part of the language as it was around 1990 based on controls supplied by Allen-Bradely and Fanuc.

  1. Next Generation Controller Specification for an Open Systems Architecture Standard ↩

  2. Enhanced machine controller architecture overview ↩

  3. The NIST RS274NGC Interpreter - Version 3 ↩

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