Quality Applications

Digital-Age Tool Helps Create Classical Sculptures Faro Technologies Inc.'s FaroArm  The process of marble sculpting relies on a partnership between artist and sculptor. Artists turn their visions into plaster models known as maquettes and then send them to their studio partner. Studio artisans tack small studs into the maquettes at points that roughly define the object's shape. Using calipers, rulers and large sheets of paper, the artisans take measurements from these points and scale up the model to the size envisioned by the artist.  To eliminate confusion and improve fidelity between maquette and finished sculpture, the marble studio di Stagetti Nicola of Pietrasanta, Italy, replaced the classical model scaling technique with a FARO Technologies 3-D digital measuring arm, which gives the studio the capability to capture an unlimited number of data points from a maquette.

 

Quick Flat-Part Inspection Aids Sheet Metal Plant
Virtek Vision Corp.'s LaserQC

Mack Molding is a leading supplier of contract manufacturing services and injection molded plastic parts to high-technology companies, including the server/mass storage, business equipment, medical, telecommunications, industrial and consumer products markets.

 When the shop first started production in the summer of 2000, parts had to be sent a few miles away to Mack's plant in East Arlington, Vermont, where quality technicians checked setups with a coordinate measuring machine. The round-trip sometimes took as long as two days. And, if a problem in the setup appeared, two days worth of work would have to be scrapped.

 At the sheet-metal operation, the company concluded that operating its own CMM would be too labor-intensive. Because his staff members had worked with camera-based systems in the past, they decided on a seven-camera optical inspection system.  This led to the company's decision to purchase a LaserQC laser inspection system from Virtek Vision Corp.