Feature scanning guidance

The groundbreaking innovation of PolyWorks 2014’s real-time quality meshing technology was to compute and display quality metrics that guide laser scanner operators toward delivering high-quality scanned surfaces. PolyWorks 2015 expands these scanning guidance capabilities by computing and displaying quality metrics for features that need to be extracted on scanned data. The objective of the new feature scanning guidance tool is to answer the two following questions:

• Is there enough data to reliably fit this feature?
• If there is not enough data, where should the operator capture additional data?

Three quality metrics analyze surface, curve, and circumference coverage and trigger the display of guidance graphics that indicate where an operator should perform additional scans. Once the quality is considered acceptable for a specific feature, its guidance graphics are no longer displayed. For round features for example, the quality metrics ensure that at least 270 degrees of a feature’s circumference has been scanned, resulting in the enhanced quality and precision of fitted features; whereas for planar features, they ensure that at least 75% of the surface has been scanned, resulting in a balanced fit. The new feature scanning guidance tool also improves measurement repeatability and accelerates learning, as a team of laser scanner operators will be guided to measure the same parts in similar ways.

Feature-based inspection in 2D

PolyWorks 2015 introduces a new user-friendly, well-integrated workflow to perform feature-based inspection in 2D. Inspecting in 2D along planar sections is useful for parts that are too flexible or deformed, such as plastic parts and castings, or for measuring geometry types that are difficult to measure in 3D, like fillet radius and wall thickness. 

The new three-step workflow consists of:

• Creating a planar section.
• Defining nominal features on the nominal component of the section (such as lines, arcs, distances, and angles).
• Extracting these features on the measured component of the section.

The new 2D inspection workflow replaces a former manual process, unlocking significant productivity gains by its full compatibility with the PolyWorks automatic project update and DirectReplay™ multiple piece measurement technologies.

Additional enhancements

PolyWorks 2015 also includes productivity-related enhancements:

• A new sample concept in SPC, with four new control charts compliant with industry standards, and a direct access to Cpk and Ppk values for samples.
• A new high-quality point cloud Data object type that significantly improves performance when using real-time quality meshing along with multiple device positions.
• New target-based device position alignment capabilities that meet the requirements of laser tracker operators in the aerospace industry, such as the individual control over the use of a target’s X, Y, Z coordinates, the control over the use of a target in scaling computations, and a target weight. The PolyWorks bundle adjustment algorithm has also been improved to handle device positions oriented to gravity by means of a level sensor.
• Cloud-based delivery of node-locked license keys.

“We are very pleased with the productivity boost that PolyWorks 2015 brings to the metrology processes of our customers. It also delivers a new level of sophistication to the solutions introduced with PolyWorks 2014, further maximizing the return on investment to all our customers operating laser scanning devices,” said Marc Soucy, President of InnovMetric Software.

About InnovMetric Software

Founded in 1994 and headquartered in Quebec, QC, Canada, with subsidiaries worldwide, InnovMetric Software Inc. is the leading provider of universal 3D metrology software solutions. The world’s largest industrial manufacturing organizations (Toyota, GM, Volkswagen, Honda, BMW, Daimler, Ford, Rolls-Royce, Pratt & Whitney, Boeing, Embraer, Bombardier, Apple, and many more) trust InnovMetric’s PolyWorks® software solutions and associated technical services to maximize the benefits of 3D measurement technologies for their engineering and manufacturing applications.

With our subsidiaries and joint ventures, we have more than 200 employees across 7 countries: Canada, United States, China, India, Thailand, Japan, and Brazil.