Design of a Universal Software System for Controlling Geometric Measuring Devices

The research project UP-Prosa, a German acronym for universal and unified platform for planning, programming, controlling and evaluating processes, of measuring, aims at realizing a platform to design and control processes of geometry measurements, which supports a broad variety of measuring devices via one user interface. Based on Windows Operating System (OS) a software was developed able to control inspection devices for different types of geometry measurements (coordinate measuring machine, form, roughness, gear) and manufacturers by one defined communication protocol. This uniform user interface contains the programming of measurement processes, evaluation algorithms with standardized methods, as well as abilities to generate record pages at the users expectations. At the level of geometric measuring devices a universal controlling software called Prosa InterCommunicator (Prosa-ICom) was designed. Prosa-ICom communicates via network with the user interface and translates the defined protocol into a measuring device specific form. The internal structure is extendable and so it seems to be appropriate for both new developments and upgrades (retrofit) for all kinds of geometric measuring devices.