CMM Measurement & Inspection Services

Utilizing an outside service organization for dimensional inspection and validation can have significant advantages for your manufacturing and quality operations. The majority of the time spent on Coordinate Measurement Machine inspections is in the initial programming and set up of new components for measurement. Our business model is built around augmenting your CMM capabilities when you need them.

Contact us today to discover the new possibilities that this technology can offer to help you reach your goals.

Coordinate Measuring

Fixed Coordinate Measuring Machines (CMM)

Utilizing large volume coordinate measuring machines running PolyWorks, Calypso and PC-DMIS to capture dimensional data on parts with an envelope up to a 2.5 x 2.0 x 1.0 meters and heavy components (up to 15,000lbs), 3DES offer a unique ability to facilitate your projects.

While there are several types of CMMs with their own distinct advantages, such as horizontal arm CMMs, fixed touch probe coordinate measuring machines offer the best accuracy available for your projects and ours have measurement uncertainties down to around 0.0001”. These machines employ CMM probes to physically touch areas of your parts to collect tactile data as the probe makes direct contact with your part surfaces. This information can either be collected by a human operator or through direct computer control (DCC).

This direct physical contact reduces the typical noise that is seen in light-based scanning technologies and allows a higher level of accuracy and precision. Because various straight and angled probe extensions can be used to modify probe position, data can be collected in deep holes that are generally out of the ‘line of sight’ of many light-based scanning technologies.

We also offer services using multi-sensor coordinate measuring machines that combine touch probing with vision and light-based scanners. These CMMs combine the best of the touch probe scanning and light-based scanning methods.

Industrial CT Scanners

Industrial Computed Tomography (CT) scanning allows internal surface metrology of parts and assemblies without the need to disassemble or section the items. We use the latest generation of CT scanners that include metrology-grade CMMs. This new form of the technology adds equipment to the standard CT equipment, which allows extreme control of part positioning, temperature and source to stage to detector calibration.

3D Engineering Solutions is the first to add CT scanning to their ISO17025 scope of accreditation.  We are engineering metrologists and have brought that knowledge to CT scanning with great success.

CT scanning opens up a world of dimensional measurement never before possible with touch probe CMMs or light-based coordinate measuring machine technology. You can now not only see interior sections of your complicated parts that are not reachable with probes or light but also inside the material itself to define porosity, inclusions, delamination and other potential defects.

Structured Light Systems

Using precision non-contact inspection utilizing the latest blue light structured light technology, 3DES is able to measure small medical instruments through vehicle-sized objects.

Adding a blue light source prevents stray white light from potentially interfering with the data.  The camera only looks for the narrow band of blue frequencies and filters out the rest.  Since the ambient light around measurement equipment has very little of these frequencies, the noise level in the data is greatly reduced.

This technology combines a precision projector and powerful camera to capture many images of the part being measured. A pattern of black lines is projected onto the part and captured by the camera. Using a series of these captures, a point cloud of the individual pixels is created through optical triangulation methods. Those small point clouds of various sections of the part are combined to produce a point cloud of the entire surface being measured. Each point cloud is aligned to its neighbor by means of targets (small stickers with reflective dots) or a geometry-based alignment (when the surfaces cannot allow foreign objects [FOD] and where enough geometry is present).

Like all of the scanning technologies, you are left with a point cloud representation of the entire part. This allows extraction of any print dimension and, more importantly, allows extraction of dimensions not on the print that may be needed later for troubleshooting or comparison to other parts.

Portable Laser and Probe CMMs (PCMM)

Product inspection verifies part conformance in relation to design specifications and confirms whether critical tolerances and quality assurance standards are being met. By using 7- axis portable coordinate measurement machines, our quality assurance inspection services offer several key advantages over conventional inspection services.

By using non-contact, fully integrated laser inspection and digitizing, our highly trained engineers can quickly gather high-density part geometry and dimensional data that is accurate and detailed enough to provide quality assurance at a higher level than ever before.

These articulated measuring arm-based CMMs offer a hybrid option of both touchless laser scanning and more accurate touch scanning probes in one device.

The portability and speed of our 3D laser inspection service even allows an on-site inspection to be performed in process, which improves your ability to pinpoint quality assurance problems, reduce errors and troubleshoot processes. We have multiple mounting options for the equipment such as tripods, clamps, magnetic mounts and vacuum mounts. This allows us to measure precision components in almost any condition or position.

They also outperform traditional Fixed CMMs by having 7 axis to adjust the probe movement. Traditional coordinate measuring machines only have 3 which limit the full range of motion that those instruments can position themselves in.

Using high-resolution data from the latest 3D measurement technologies, our detailed product inspection reports will help reduce troubleshooting and engineering time by eliminating guesswork.

Confocal White Light Scanning

A newer touchless CMM scanning service that we offer is confocal white light scanning. This is different from the White Light / Blue Light Scanning mentioned above in that it employs the reflected frequency of light to measure distances.

The system works by sending white light through an optic and allowing that light to be broken up into its different frequencies (colors). When those frequencies refocus on the other side of the optic, each one is focused at a different distance. When an object’s surface is contacted, the frequency that is in focus at that point is reflected back through that optic and will be read at a higher intensity than all the other reflections.

This yields some very distinct benefits over other types of light-based scanning services; primarily, the specularity of the surface being measured. Specularity refers to the ‘shininess’ of the surface. Light-based scanning systems have a harder time interpreting highly reflective to mirror surfaces. In those cases, a water-soluble paint or powder must be applied to receive consistently clean data. For Confocal White Light systems, this is not an issue. You can in fact measure highly specular surfaces or even transparent surfaces!

Vision Systems

Our Coordinate Measuring Machine Vision Systems employ various magnification of optics to help measure parts across x, y, and z dimensions. In each image that is viewed in these CMMs, we are able to lay out geometry and specify the number of points that are calculated by the system for each feature. So if we need 10,000 points around a circular feature on your part, the system can apply its algorithm to that feature and generate that number of points!

All of this data is collected to a high level of accuracy in 2 dimensions (X, Y) and a slightly lower level of accuracy in the other dimension (Z). However, our system combines vision and touch probe CMM and Confocal White Light CMM Scanning to provide very high accuracy data in x,y, and z dimensions. Integrated into the system is a Zeiss true 4th Axis which allows us to maintain our coordinate system as we rotate the part.

Contact us today to see how we can augment your internal resources and capabilities.

FAQs

  • What does CMM inspection mean?

    • CMM inspection is the process of using coordinate measuring equipment to quantify the geometric dimensions of an object. Using laser probes, three position sensors, linear scales, and other technological components, the coordinate measuring machine samples the measurement input and determines the relative location of a particular point.
  • What are the four main elements of CMM?

    • The four main elements of CMM are the structure, probing system, controller, and metrology software. Additionally, parts like scales and air bearings may also be incorporated into CMM equipment to adjust functionality.
  • What are the types and applications of CMM?

    • The main types of coordinate measuring machines are bridge CMM, cantilever CMM, gantry CMM, and horizontal arm CMM. Each have their own advantages and the best choice depends on the specific application. For example, horizontal arm CMMs are suited for measuring large surfaces while cantilever CMMs are best at measuring small parts.
Man works on CMM Inpsection and part validation
Dimensional Inspection For Parts

Contact us today for all your CMM Inspection requirements.

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