Apologies in advance for the long post. Including far too many details but it's accurate context. Arranged most important followed by details.

Goal:

I'm looking to identify/understand/select the best method to do high repeatability cutting and detailed tool path generation to minimize risk of damaging fossils and minerals with automated assistance. 300w spindle and force sensors/load cells in all 3 axis of mount. Cutter is a toss up between carbide and diamond.

Questions:

1. Are there any fatal flaws I'm missing in what's physically possible? Most of what I've researched shows it's definitely doable but to get the resolution I need may take some figuring

2. Are there other technologies that I've missed on considering? This is fairly outside of my engineering education scope so there may be some i totally miss.

3. Any potential hiccups or "this might be a lot harder than you think" type predictions you have? This is why I am also imaging the laser lines alternating and help to collect data that will help grasp issues

Generate/measure a mesh of 50mm x 50mm area at tolerance of .1mm for X and Y. Z requires a repeatability of 0.02mm in the edge case limit

Reference:

Picture 1 is of a little sliding gantry I've been using for manual prep as my coordination and shakiness is a bit rough. I'm looking to first remote control and outfit with sensors to collect a baseline performance before working on automating more of the rough part

Picture 2 is an example of a partially prepared fossil Ammonite segment.

Picture 3 is an example of a few steps in process manually on a different fossil portion.

General process :

Machine will be about 0.1mm or better in all axis but will be attempted to be interpolated for purpose of control

-Generate some kind of surface with a method that has high precision and repeatability but does not need to be very accurate as we want a delta rather than absolute.

-Identify and remove areas that are exposed enough to later work by hand through machine vision. This has already been well solved

-Offset target surface, mask exposed areas, predict risk areas to go slow with and good areas to go more agressively in. generate tool path, run program, clean, and make a new surface with what's left. Iterate an appropriate amount of times.

Possible measurement considerations:

High precision dro scales:

Speed is relatively important, so physically probing with a glass scale for position is not my go to. Density of required point cloud would take a while.

Laser spot/line sensors/profilometers:

Had some experience industrially with the baumer stuff but this is just a hobby for me to keep busy mentally while off on disability so budget is relatively limited. I've got a lot of stashed parts but most precision stuff is dro scales and similar.

Off the shelf 3d scanner:

I can't afford something of high enough quality. Had bad luck with my CR scan Ferret and found photogrammetry a better solution

Photogrammetry:

Using machine vision, hopefully from the same camera as the color segmentation. This is looking like the solution I'm leaning towards but it is very software heavy and has the most uncertainty as well as the hardest to test and tune without risking a lot of fossil damage in the adjustment process.

For making the computer vision part easy I'm thinking of mounting line laser protectors to the spindle that are calibrated to be a known square dimension and generate camera corrections. It's a simplified structured light scanner basically. The goal is to use this as an easy reference that could be switched to IR more permanently to help with dust tolerance. For each of these operations it may be advantageous to reposition the workpiece target area at the most.

If you made it this far. Gold star!

How do I measure the roundness of 0,005mm on a Zoller Genius 3?

Hallo,
es geht in dem Fall um den Bezug [B-B]SL. Der Bezug selber besteht aus 10 Zylindern. Was macht da mehr Sinn 10 Zylinder messen und daraus direkt einen Zylinder erstellen. Oder jeweils 1 Kreis oben 1 Kreis unten im Zylinder messen aus den jeweiligen Kreisen 1 Kreis bilden also Zylinder oben 1 Kreis Zylinder unten 1 Kreis und am Ende aus diesen Kreisen eine 3D gerade?

I'm sure you all use some sort of inspection-specific software at work aside from the basic Word and Excel (of which WE rely on far too much..). I have my issues with Calypso, I'm glad that somebody else is using GageTrak now, and NetInspect is a bit of a pain, but I've become used to it by now. But InspectionXpert? Oh my gawd; what a pain!!

It takes so long to load, or to make updates. I sit for 5-10 seconds sometimes to save, and then go on with the next characteristic. It can't read numbers or text worth a $h!t, adds strange things into weird places, and for position callouts, it almost NEVER gets them right.

At BEST, it's correct maybe half the time. It does kill 2 or 3 birds with one stone, so even as glitchy as it is it saves a lot of time, but it sure doesn't FEEL like it when you are in the middle of a multiple sub-components build and have to prepare 18 separate aerospace FAI's in 1 week....

I’m(Modus Guy) trying to learn McCosmos and would really appreciate some guidance from someone who has experience using it professionally.

I’m fairly new to the software and would like to understand the workflow properly . I’m particularly looking for help with the basics and gradually moving toward more advanced features.

Are there any tutorials out there ?

If anyone here is experienced with McCosmos and is willing to guide me, explain things occasionally, or point me toward good learning resources, I’d really appreciate it.

Thanks in advance!

Hi all, i need help figuring out how to read the center coordinates on a Styli without touching the part. Same as Read point on PC-Dmis.. Can anyone help? Thanks

Hello all again,

As the title suggests, I've been working on a correlation effort between two different sites that are performing a profile of line evaluation (DRF evaluation) on a challenging brass gear the size of a thumb nail, with a tolerance of .003 or +/- .0015".

One site reports out, one site reports within tolerance, but nearly failing. I've also come to find out that I'm having trouble with Mitutoyo's scanpack form evaluation software....just not intuitive at all. By aligning both teams to use the same point spacing, same datum alignment strategy, same cleaning process, same DRF evaluation I was able to get both sites to report within .001" of each other (.0028" vs .0038") but that's the absolute best I can do right now as I'm limited by both a language barrier and varying vision system comptency.

I'm also seeing a part to part variation of .0005". I'm leaning towards stating that when factoring part to part variation, GR&R results above 15%, vision system accuracy at about 5 micron...all these things combined lead me to believe that we're as close as we're going to get with the equipment we're using, tight tolerances, challenging profile call-out, manufacturing process (stamped die cut brass)....all these things

Thoughts?

Thank you!

Hello all,

Hope everyone is doing well. Any feedback on this or examples of what your validation dept handles the following scenario is greatly appreciated.

Performing a capability study on a hole with MMC applied using Minitab: how do you handle it?

I know there's a few ways to go about this.... historically I've transformed the data into a ratio based on tolerance used vs tolerance allowed, run it as a non normal distribution, single sided upper using 1.0 as your upper.

I've also seen sites that will convert to a radial distance. I also believe there's a strong case for evaluating each axis separately.

With that said, I've also heard of not transforming the data, running as a single sided upper..

Within Minitab or QC CALC, how have you guys handled capability studies on position tolerances?

Thank you!

I'm struggling to properly understand this drawing indication (ISO).

As per my understanding, the common zone modifier calls for dealing with each 11 mm diameter and 13 mm diameter as common, then SIM1 modifier indicates to deal with all 8 CZ diameters as a whole.

Is this correct?

If that's the case, when controlling product in CMM, the result should be just 1 position measurement, not 8, right?

My customer only knows these holes are for assembly against a flange. Asking for drawing clarification or metrology advice hasn't worked.

Thanks in advance

Hello! I’m fairly new to this machine and I’m trying to follow a Tribology paper on wear scar analysis. I have a 1/4” sphere that I put in a holder so the top is exposed (as in about 1/2 of the sphere). I am trying to measure the top of the sphere (about 0.6mm) When I try to use my profilometer it says the measurement is out of range. I’ve tried to adjust the length of the measurement (lambda c) but I haven’t had much luck. According to the paper it should be possible to do this. Does anyone have any experience or have any resources that might be helpful? Thank you :D

I've been in the Aerospace industry for roughly 15 years. Through a series of events I was introduced to Jig & Fixture builder with laser trackers & standard optics back when I was 21 and now work in a group that utilizes similar measurement instruments for production inspection.

Lately I've been thinking of using one of the App Builder applications to create one that would tailor to other users to help with situations we commonly experience.

I wanted to get feedback from others in the field to ask what you would want to see in an app like this?

Currently this is what I'd like to include:

Providing information and resources to your job-related questions with...

- The answer

- The formula

- Visual diagrams

- Standards references (ANSI or ISO, DRF rules, etc...)

- Saved company procedures

I'm open to all input. I won't take offense if you think this is useless as well. I just have a hard top accepting that if it isn't broken then it shouldn't be fixed lol.

I've been talking with a few people here about wafer metrology, and I realized the workflow seems to vary a lot depending on whether you’re in production, R&D, or equipment development.

In high-volume production, it sounds like most of the analysis stays inside the metrology tool software.

But in R&D or development environments, people seem much more likely to export raw data and use their own scripts, Excel, JMP, or other post-processing tools.

So I’m curious:

How often do you actually take raw 2D/3D measurement data out of the equipment software and analyze it yourself?

And when you do, what are you usually trying to calculate or visualize that the original software doesn’t handle well?

Mostly interested in real workflows rather than specific software recommendations.

Howdy everyone. I work at a company that's native software for laser tracker data capture and inspection is Verisurf. We're currently using 2025 and know that we are significantly underutilizing all of its capabilities when it comes to the MBD and GD&T analysis features.

Lately I've been trying to help our small team on a specific program to format and use a PDF or PowerPoint template that confirms with a report format that we normally use. The problem is that it seems like it's limited in adaptability for customizing these templates.

Have any of you made a more customized version of either format? TIA!

I have an old, manual CMM that's broken.

Cost to repair is ~20k, replace with used or portable Keyence XM is 60-70k, or new CMM up from there.

I have management not wanting to spend a dime.

What's a cheaper alternative? Accurate to .001"...?

Thank you.

I work in automotive, and I'm currently a master technician. I recently saw a job opening on Indeed for a QC parts inspector and decided to apply. The posted requirements for the position are to be proficient with metrology equipment, but nothing was mentioned about prior QC experience. Well, I had a Teams interview this morning, and they want me to come in for an assessment. I am nervous because I don’t really know what to expect and was hoping someone could shed some light on the assessment process for me.

Is there a way to duplicate this in PCDMIS 2025.2? Greatly appreciated all the help.

Thanks.

Hey, i might be changing company that’s using mitutoyo’s cmm and i should learn to program with MCOSMOS. How hard is it to adapt to MCOSMOS from Calypso with 1 and half year daily programming experience?

I am thinking of this in terms of music. Example, I have had to go down these deep dark rabbit holes trying to find artists I would have never heard of unless someone sent me a link or I randomly came across them.

Cad, pdf, communication, data organization, AI "stuff", reporting or excel tools, etc..

A few months ago we purchased EngRevision Pro and my entire workflow has changed for the better. Cut my drawing set up, programming and reporting by 30% easy. I had never heard about it until an Engineer from a company I used to work with introduced me. I wish I would have known about it sooner. We went from 1 seat to 15 in a matter of months.

We also found this spec test app on git hub that allows you to import a datasheet from Inspection Xpert or EngRevision Pro and it will analyze the nominals, tolerances, gd&t to the ES-BL34-1298-AA spec sheet and shows conditions that do not meet the recommended tolerances based on material. (This one was great for plastics) SO we can go back to the customer during feasibility with some data driven ammo.

Now I am curious if there are tools out there that most are not aware of.

What are other softwares that Engineers, programmers etc are using in our field that you found to have really helped eliminate the nonsense or increase efficiency, etc..?

Free or Paid

First. I'm no expert in metrology or CMM. Very much a beginner and just started watching tutorials and product overviews this week.

[Pic for Attention]

A friend asked if I could look into learning how to write programs to do (semi) automated CMM for some parts his shop is making.

Currently they're running PC-DMIS Pro and the shop techs use it to manually check some crucial feature dimensions, datums, etc...

My understanding is that you can't bring CAD files or drawings into Pro...? You have to have CAD (or CAD++) for that.

Is it technically possible to write pretty thorough programs that can later be run with DCC (after manual alignment) with just Pro? My assumption is that it's possible but you have to interpret all of the features, datums, relationships etc... yourself.

Where CAD can help with a lot of that because it's baked into the CAD file, or you can bring in the drawings derive it from there.

Am I way off base with this? I'm watching through tutorials/training from Hexagon, CMMXYZ and others to get up to speed as fast as possible.

Any help is appreciated.

[Edit: any reason for the down votes? Is this not something appropriate for this sub?]

Mech eng student here, so apologies if this is a basic question.

I've been reading about how ISO 9001 shops handle gauge calibration and I keep

seeing spreadsheets mentioned, sometimes alongside dedicated software. What I

can't tell from the outside is whether the spreadsheet approach is actually fine

or whether it just barely holds together.

A few things I'm curious about:

- How many gauges are you tracking, roughly?

- Has anything ever gone overdue without someone noticing, and how did that surface?

- When an auditor asks for a cert, how long does it take to actually produce it?

Just trying to understand the workflow versus how the textbooks describe it.

So more info, I am working in polyworks and this report was made in polyworks, this is a type of plastic tote, B32 is a mold line that surrounds the box on 4 sides. The print just has the call out and the control box but that's it

I know its a pattern feature made from line features but I can't figure out how they are getting the 4 true positions (whenever I make it with lines it only gives me one control once I make it a feature) and how they were setting it parallel to the datum plane.

I just don't know what the features actually look like and how to set up the geo controls to make it look like theirs. And it has to look like theirs :/

Hello all! Wanted to ask some insights from those who torque calibration experience. Our torque sensor and torque analyzers have always been calibrated as a system- together. When calibrating the sensor, vendor will use our analyzer. But our most recent calibration, we noticed they used a different analyzer not ours. And sensor failed at all test points with consistent bias across the range. Does the different set up could have caused this? Not sure why they used a different analyzer. Thanks in advance!

A technical specification can look extremely convincing simply because the number is precise.
For example:
Accuracy: ±0.01 mm
But without additional information, there are still a lot of unanswered questions.
What was actually measured?
What standard or test method was used?
At what temperature?
Over what travel range?
Under load or no load?
Is the figure guaranteed, typical, or based on an ideal setup?
This makes me wonder how people working in metrology actually treat manufacturer specifications.
If two machines publish similar accuracy numbers, but one manufacturer provides the measurement method and the other doesn’t:
How much weight would you give the undocumented number?
And are there certain specifications you simply refuse to compare unless the test procedure is known?
Curious how people here approach this in practice.