This work reviews the basic concepts of co-ordinate metrology. It defines what co-ordinate measuring machines (CMMs) are and details how they can be applied to gain a competitive advantage in a variety of business settings, from small machine shops to global manufacturers. Areas that are critical for the successful application of CMMs - including environmental factors, the measuring of speed and accuracy, traceability, versatility and programming methodology - are considered.;The book is intended for manufacturing, mechanical, quality control, design, industrial, automation, automotive and aerospace engineers and managers, as wel as upper-level undergraduate and graduate students in these disciplines.;College or university bookstores may order five or more copies at a special student price, which is available from Marcel Dekker Inc upon request.

This book focuses on effective methods for assessing the accuracy of both coordinate measuring systems and coordinate measurements. It mainly reports on original research work conducted by Sladek’s team at Cracow University of Technology’s Laboratory of Coordinate Metrology. The book describes the implementation of different methods, including artificial neural networks, the Matrix Method, the Monte Carlo method and the virtual CMM (Coordinate Measuring Machine), and demonstrates how these methods can be effectively used in practice to gauge the accuracy of coordinate measurements. Moreover, the book includes an introduction to the theory of measurement uncertainty and to key techniques for assessing measurement accuracy. All methods and tools are presented in detail, using suitable mathematical formulations and illustrated with numerous examples. The book fills an important gap in the literature, providing readers with an advanced text on a topic that has been rapidly developing in recent years. The book is intended for master and PhD students, as well as for metrology engineers working at industrial and research laboratories. It not only provides them with a solid background for using existing coordinate metrology methods; it is also meant to inspire them to develop the state-of-the-art technologies that will play an important role in supporting quality growth and innovation in advanced manufacturing.

The objective of this thesis is to create an open interface software system for an existing UPCMM (Ultra Precision Coordinate Measuring Machine) using the I++DME specification so that the machine can be operated not only by its own application software but also by any other I++DME compliant software. The I++DME is a relatively new interface specification proposed by an international committee in response to the interchangeability problem that exists between different CMM hardware and software available on the market. The UPCMM, a three axes Cartesian CMM, was developed and manufactured by KODAK for their specific measurement purposes and is a comparatively new member to the Center for Precision Metrology's CMM family. The controller for this UPCMM is made up of industry-standard components, but at this time no software exists that supports the I++DME specification for these components. The work contained in this thesis includes understanding the working principle of the UPCMM machine, performing basic measurement operations to determine the present measurement capability and writing an operating manual for other CMM users, in addition to developing the new interface software so that the UPCMM can be operated by any I++DME compliant software. At the conclusion of these tasks, basic measurements are performed using the new I++DME interface and the results are compared with measurements taken by the original software (DeltaTau). The correlation of these results is one indication of the successful implementation of the I++DME interface.

This book is a printed edition of the Special Issue "Design and Applications of Coordinate Measuring Machines" that was published in Applied Sciences

Present contour measuring systems are reviewed and discussed in general, and capabilities of an over-all system are summarized. Problem areas are discussed and a best approach to future design of systems is offered.