Metrology, the scientific study of measurement, has never been faster or more precise. Yet many quality problems that land on a CMM table were decided weeks earlier, when someone measured against a drawing that was no longer the approved one.

Contact surface-finish measurement and confocal optical surface-finish measurement are two different methods of measuring the roughness or irregularity of a surface.

Consider a hypothetical turned shaft with a diameter specified as 20.000 mm ± 0.010 mm. The supplier reports 20.009 mm, just inside the upper limit of 20.010 mm, with an expanded measurement uncertainty of 0.003 mm.

If you’re familiar with the maker community, you may already have encountered WhippetInTech, from a design engineer who documents his builds on YouTube.

If you engage in a game of word association, chances are when you hear the term Formula 1, responses will be terms associated with speed: race car, acceleration, fast, momentum, velocity...

Painter Bob Ross taught us that “happy accidents” can make beautiful art. Happy accidents also happen in science when experiments take research in unexpected directions. One dramatic example is Sir Alexander Fleming’s accidental discovery of penicillin.

Four years ago, National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) researcher Cyrus Daugherty developed an algorithm to virtually unroll the tightly wrapped layers of a cylindrical lithium-ion battery.

Highly reflective metallic surfaces are among the most challenging inspection targets in machine vision.

A measurement isn’t only a number. It’s a number obtained by an instrument in a physical state.

Finding something underground is one thing. Giving a project team information they can actually use is another.