Development of a Computer-Aided Testing System for 3D Coordinate Measuring Machine

Three-dimensional (3D) measurement systems are widely used in the machinery industry, and the measuring range has expanded with the popularization of optical probes. As measurement results are highly dependent on the scanning path, a computer-aided testing (CAT) system is developed to automatically generate a scanning path from the computer-aided design (CAD) data of the target. However, in the case of line laser probes, which are commonly used as optical probes, it is necessary to generate scanning paths considering the shape variations along the scanning lines based on the scanning posture. Furthermore, using probes with a wide measurement area, such as a line laser probe, causes overlaps, i.e., the duplication of the measurement areas. Reducing overlaps is required because they cause deterioration of the quality of point-cloud data and increase the amount of data. Focusing on a 3D measurement system using a line laser probe, this study developed a path generation system to automatically create scanning paths from the CAD data of a target and a measurement simulator to detect overlaps. This study presents the measurement results obtained using the scanning paths generated by the proposed CAT system and compares the results of simulations with those of actual measurements.