Mitutoyo Corporation

Mitutoyo Europe Gmbh

Mitutoro Europe Gmbh

Eric Yeh-Wei Tseo

Dahai Yu

Bart De Vlieghere

Ryan Northrup

Frank Uwe Madsen

Samuel Wu

Tobias Friedrich

Michael Peter

A system is provided for programming workpiece feature inspection operations for a coordinate measuring machine. The system includes a computer-aided design (CAD) file processing portion, a geometric relationship analyzer, an inspection motion path generation portion, and a user interface including an editable plan representation of a current workpiece feature inspection plan, a workpiece inspection program simulation portion configured to display a 3D view including geometric features and inspection operation representations, and a context sensitive menu portion. The context sensitive menu portion displays a context sensitive relational command menu that indicates a valid set of relational commands including relational feature or relational measurement commands operable to define a corresponding constructed feature or corresponding relational measurement operation to be included in the current workpiece feature inspection plan. The valid set of relational commands is determined based on a concurrently selected geometric feature set including at least two geometric features concurrently selected and indicated in the user interface.

Context sensitive relational feature/measurement command menu display in coordinate measurement machine (CMM) user interface

A system is provided for programming workpiece feature inspection operations for a coordinate measuring machine. The system includes a computer aided design (CAD) file processing portion, an inspection motion path generation portion and a user interface. The user interface includes a workpiece inspection program simulation portion and auxiliary collision avoidance volume creation elements. The workpiece inspection program simulation portion displays a 3D view and the auxiliary collision avoidance volume creation elements are operable to create or define auxiliary collision avoidance volumes that are displayed in the 3D view. In various implementations, rather than requiring a user to model a physical object (e.g., as part of a workpiece or CMM) in a CAD file, the user may instead create and position an auxiliary collision avoidance volume at a location where the physical object is expected to be, so as to prevent collisions that could occur with the physical object.

Inspection program editing environment providing user defined collision avoidance volumes

A system is provided for programming workpiece feature inspection operations for a coordinate measuring machine. The system includes a computer-aided design (CAD) file processing portion and a user interface including a workpiece inspection program simulation portion, an editing user interface portion, and a simulation status and control portion. The simulation status and control portion is configured to respond to selection of workpiece features or inspection operation representations (e.g., as selected in the workpiece inspection program simulation portion or editing user interface portion). The simulation status and control portion response to the selection includes altering a simulation status portion (e.g., altering a numerical time representation or a position of a current time indicator) to characterize a state of progress through a current workpiece feature inspection plan corresponding to the portion of the current workpiece feature inspection plan directed to the selected workpiece feature or inspection operation representation.

Inspection program editing environment with simulation status and control continually responsive to selection operations

A system is provided for programming workpiece feature inspection operations for a coordinate measuring machine. The system includes a computer-aided design (CAD) file processing portion and a user interface comprising a 3D view, and editable plan representation. Both the 3D view and the editable plan representation are configure to be automatically responsive to operations in a first set of editing operations, regardless of whether the operations are performed in the 3D view or the editable plan representation of the user interface. The first set of editing operations may comprise deleting (or adding) at least one workpiece feature in the 3D view or the editable plan representation of the user interface, for example. Various other portions of the system (e.g. other user interface windows) may also be automatically responsive to the first set of editing operations, regardless of where the editing operations are performed in the user interface.

Inspection program editing environment with editing environment automatically globally responsive to editing operations in any of its portions

A system and method are provided for programming workpiece feature inspection operations for a coordinate measuring machine. An editing environment is operated to display a 3-dimensional workpiece representation comprising a first surface feature of a workpiece. A first feature surface sampling pattern is created having at least one pattern parameter adjusted to correspond to a first surface feature of the workpiece. A corresponding representation of the sampling pattern includes operative sampling pattern locations located proximate to the first surface feature. User operations in the GUI further adjust pattern parameters of the sampling pattern. The further adjustment of the pattern parameters simultaneously affects a plurality of the sampling pattern locations. The sampling pattern representation may include various types of operative and inoperative sampling pattern locations, which may be displayed in a manner that distinguishes them from one another, such as by being represented with different colors, shapes or patterns.

System and method for programming workpiece feature inspection operations for a coordinate measuring machine

A method is provided for programming step and repeat operations of a machine vision inspection system. The machine vision inspection system includes an imaging portion, a stage for holding one or more workpieces in a field of view (FOV) of the imaging portion, a control portion, and a graphical user interface (GUI). According to the method, a user operates the machine vision inspection system to define a set of inspection operations to be performed on a first configuration of workpiece features. The user also operates the GUI to display a step and repeat dialog box, in which he defines a first plurality of parameters defining a set of default step and repeat locations for performing the defined set of inspection operations. The user further operates the GUI to define a set of inspection step and repeat locations, which is a subset of the defined set of default step and repeat locations, where the inspection operations are to be actually performed.

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Kirkland, WA, United States of America

Eric Yeh-Wei Tseo