Producing Geometry You Can Trust
QC provided an engineer for our project who did a great job of collecting the dimensional data for the parts to be reverse engineered, creating the CAD models, and producing prints for manufacturing. He kept in regular contact with me throughout the project, allowing us to quickly resolve issues as they arose. He was also very responsive when asked to make changes to the prints. Overall, a superior job.
- Paul,
Power Generation
Go back to Archive
Laser Scanning Micro-Topography
During product development, micro-scanning can be an important resource for resolving processing or tooling problems. Here's a brief overview of how this technology gets used.
In many of today's precision products, micro-surfaces need to be defined in greater detail than simply identifying a surface finish. When capturing a topography in three dimensions, the manufacturing process can be better defined when producing surfaces that are used for absorption, osseointegration, or adhesion.
With micro-scanning technology, individual points can be captured to less than 0.1 micron in the z direction, and less than 1 micron on 3D position. The resultant point cloud may be analyzed for a multitude of outputs, including total surface area, non-contact surface finish, max and min peaks, cross section profile, and deviation from a plane.
Micro-laser scanning can even be used to assess the sharpness of a cutting surface.
In many cases, the microscan results are combined with output from another scanner, allowing for a relatively large object to be scanned with micro-accuracy in critical areas. Any of these outputs can be modeled in a CAD environment for further analysis and development.
©2012 David DeVowe
