There is provided a method for controlling a shape measuring apparatus that relatively moves a probe and a workpiece with a translation movement mechanism and a rotary drive mechanism to perform scanning measurement on the workpiece by moving the probe along a scanning path set in advance.
The method includes setting, by an operator, a scanning path and a rotation angle command for the rotary drive mechanism, dividing data about the scanning path into a plurality of segments and setting a translational velocity pattern of the translation movement mechanism for each segment, calculating for each segment, based on the rotation angle command, a rotation angle value at a start of the segment and a rotation angle value at an end of the segment and generating an angular velocity pattern for each segment, correcting the translational velocity pattern to reduce a rotation amount of the rotation command given by the angular velocity pattern and generating a corrected translational velocity pattern, and driving and controlling, based on a resultant velocity vector based on the corrected translational velocity pattern, the translation movement mechanism and simultaneously driving and controlling, based on an angular velocity command based on the angular velocity pattern, the rotary drive mechanism.