You manufacture a part that must be within design tolerances to work properly, so you need to measure it. It costs to: Buy the measuring device Provide a space and/or utilities for it Develop ... [Read More]

What is GD&T, anyway? The Greatest Design Tool ever, or a whole bunch of Gol-Derned Trouble? Actually, geometric dimensioning and tolerancing is both, and worth every penny. Only with ... [Read More]

Many measurements assume that a measuring device performs in the same way throughout its measuring range. In other words, a 1 mm distance measured near the center of a machine will measure 1 mm at ... [Read More]

All this talk about work in past columns—and the end of summer looming—makes me think about golf. You may not discuss golf and measurement in the same breath, but there are a lot of ... [Read More]

In last month’s column, I talked about the accuracy funnel, which shows that in a measurement system where the sensor or the part is moved in one or more axes, the greater the distance, the ... [Read More]

In last month’s column, I talked about the format of accuracy specifications for video measuring machines. The following is a typical format for a single axis accuracy specification: Ex = ... [Read More]

Accuracy, repeatability, performance—knowing how to interpret specifications for measuring devices and systems is important. This month I’ll talk about accuracy specifications for ... [Read More]

The past few columns about inspection and measurement have led to discussion of different systems for measuring based on images. One type of measurement done via image analysis is ... [Read More]

A metrologist wants to know that any variations in measurements are the result of variations of the parts being measured, not variations in the measuring devices or their users. Subjective ... [Read More]

Last month, I talked about vision vs. video and brought up the possibility of confusion between inspection and measurement. Some think that inspection is qualitative and measurement is ... [Read More]