Software that provides sensor-specific measuring strategies and enables clear time savings when generating measurement plans

Software that provides sensor-specific measuring strategies and enables clear time savings when generating measurement plans

Article Type: Equipment and software From: Aircraft Engineering and Aerospace Technology: An International Journal, Volume 80, Issue 3.

The CALYPSO 4.6 measuring software (Figure 2) from Carl Zeiss is said to improve combined optical and contact measuring with multi-sensor applications. For users, this primarily means additional time savings coupled with even more reliable, error-free measuring; whether contact or optical measuring, scanning or single-point measuring. CALYPSO combines several measurement strategies per geometric element in a single measurement plan, which can be optionally executed.

Figure 2 With CALYPSO 4.6, a click of the mouse on a tolerance in the CAD model is all that is needed to automatically generate the optimal measurement strategy

Contact and optical measuring methods complement each other ideally with many work pieces. Carl Zeiss took this into account with the introduction of Multiple Application Sensor System Technology. CALYPSO 4.6 now reportedly increases measuring efficiency: the new version of this CAD- based software also supports automatic sensor change with measuring strategies optimised for the sensor during data capture on the work piece.

CALYPSO is believed to provide the foundation for clearly shorter measuring times as several different measuring strategies for geometric elements can be managed in a single measuring plan. Maintenance is reduced to a minimum.

The corresponding strategies can be stored for single-point measuring and scanning, contact and optical measuring: specifying a few points permits the fast, random inspection of a part or single geometries through single- point measuring, resulting in a short program. The specification of many points allows analytical assessments and reference measurements, primarily through contact or optical scanning. If the desired version is selected, the automatic measuring run is performed at the appropriate speed and with different information densities. An additional beneficial application of this new function is measuring plan optimisation for use on different coordinate measuring machines with non-standardised sensors. This enables users to specify the measuring strategy for use on alternate machines.

Characteristics are now also generated and tolerances transferred to the measurement plan quickly and efficiently without operator influence. Tolerances in the CatiaV5 and Pro/E CAD formats are transferred via a direct interface. With pre-defined measurement strategies, a click of the mouse on the given tolerance of a characteristic in the CAD model is all that is needed. All geometric elements required for the characteristic are then automatically incorporated and the measurement strategy and all travel paths generated. Users can select single tolerances. With a click, they can also easily add all tolerances of a work piece to CALYPSO. The intelligent travel path generation in CALYPSO reduces possible reworking by the user to an absolute minimum. This takes the generation of a measurement plan for CNC part measurement to an outstanding level of automation.

For further information, please contact: Carl Zeiss, Tel: +44 (0) 1527 579 555.