Practical Way to Measure Large-Scale 2D Surfaces Using Repositioning on Coordinate-Measuring Machines

TL;DR

This paper presents a practical method to measure large 2D surfaces with coordinate-measuring machines by merging data from multiple positions, addressing software limitations in repositioning functionality.

Contribution

It introduces a novel approach to implement repositioning in CMM software, enabling accurate measurement of large parts beyond the machine's volume.

Findings

Effective data merging from multiple positions

Applicable to linear dimensions and location tolerances

Enhances existing CMM software capabilities

Abstract

In many situations it is required to perform an inspection of large at parts on a coordinate-measuring machine (CMM) when it is impossible to probe all necessary surfaces from one position of the part. Or it is necessary to measure a large part which dimensions exceed the volume of an available CMM. For this purpose one needs to merge the data measured in two different positions of the workpiece into one coordinate system. Though most of geodesic software has out-of-the-box functionality to do that, a lot of popular CMM software lacks it. In this paper a practical approach is described to bring a repositioning functionality into a CMM software. The Calypso metrology software was studied. The proposed inspection method can be used both for the measurements of linear dimensions and location tolerances as common practice in Calypso.