2018-05-01 by clay@...
As it turned out, after reading Roy's post, I familiarized myself with the Data-Tool app, and used it to slurp up the 51-step readings from my CGATS file after I stripped off the header and footer information. I picked a smoothing level of 1, clicked the 'negative' check box, and then copied and pasted the calculated LInearize="" string to the end of my ink descriptor file. The file compiled into a .quad file without a problem.
Another approach would be to drop the compiled 21-step .quad file and the 51-step CGATS file onto the Linearize-Quad app and generate a linearized quad file directly. But I suspect that the same issues with measurement file's value smoothness might arise.
However, using the Data-Tool app as an intermediate step is really nice and seems to solve the problem. Once again Roy, thanks!