Variation Feedback and 3D Visualization of Geometrical Inspection Data

There is no type of manufacturing process that is not afflicted by variation. Activities intended to ensure the quality of a company’s geometry processes are usually referred to as geometry assurance activities. One clear industrial problem is to understand the relations between the products concept and the manufacturing process. Dimensional data is a very important source of experience of how a product’s geometry has worked in the interaction with the actual manufacturing system. Users therefore need good analysis and presentation tools of geometry outcomes to support both the product developers and production engineers in the analysis of the production output and its consequences. Today the dimensional data can be difficult to obtain or access, and is not necessarily presented in such a way as to provide the user with all necessary information. This paper presents how presentation and analysis tools of geometrical inspection data can be taken a step further. New functionality for feature based 3D visualization of inspection data has been developed which integrates the variation simulation platform and the inspection data database. The goal has been to create better tools for analysis of geometrical variation and increase the understanding of the sources of variation.