[trialanderror]

I am pretty new to milling and am still confused with all the different techniques of measuring. I was wondering if I get a 3d scanner, if it offer accurate measurements for most parts. Asides from a 3D scanner, what other high tech ways of measuring exist? I have seen some probing on youtube videos, not sure if they are for measurements or just finding 0.

[txcncman]

Do you really have that much money? The only 3D laser scanning I have seen demonstrated only guaranteed accuracy to +/-0.008". I am sure in most instances it would be more accurate than that. But no guarantees. You can use a probe attached to a machine to do overall measuring. In both of these cases, the result is what is called a point cloud. From the point cloud, you have to have pretty robust software and computing power to gather the actual measurements. You could also do probing on specific features, but the programming can get pretty complicated. I want to know what is wrong with manual measuring done with basic measuring tools?

[trialanderror]

I have seen 3d scanners for about $1000 or they can even be built using open source software. What kind of probe are you referring to that makes measurements so I can look into them?

I will try to post an example picture of an item I am having problems measuring.

[Khalid]

Hi,
3D laser scanning or Structured Light scanning are accurate upto 0.05mm but these are very costly and handling the point cloud data and extracting the dimensions are not that easy.

You can see my blog where i am using David laser scanner and it is accurate within +-0.2mm.

Using probe is very tedious, sometime people use CMM machines to check the accuracy of their part.

It depends how much tolerances you can bear when measuring the #D scanned part..

The best is to use micrometer etc.

[txcncman]

I have seen 3d scanners for about $1000 or they can even be built using open source software. What kind of probe are you referring to that makes measurements so I can look into them?

I will try to post an example picture of an item I am having problems measuring.

Renishaw probes.

[rugburn]

You can validate machined profiles using a scaled drawing printed on a clear overlay

This overlay can be mounted in an optical comparator and them rigidly clamp the machined piece for the profile to be broadcast on the screen.

we used this process in the machining of spinal implants during in process checks with great accuracy.