Page 50 - MetalForming March 2013

Tooling Technology
White-Light Scanning Captures, Catalogs
New Die and Part Surfaces
After several iterations of die tryout and tweaking, you finally massage its dimensions to achieve in-spec stamped parts. And, to improve part fitup in assembly, you make subtle design changes. Want to capture all of these engineering changes? You can—with white- light scanning, dubbed “game-changing technology.”
BY BRAD F. KUVIN, EDITOR
Whether called on to reverse- engineer a stamping die, dig- itize and inspect stamped-part surfaces, or capture the measurements of perishable die components to enable speedy machining of replacement parts, Atlas Tool Inc. has come to rely more and more on its white-light scanner. It’s used to inspect, measure and cap- ture part and die dimensional data. Installed in 2006, the scanner, a Cog- nitens (Hexagon Metrology) Optigo, has proven to be ten-times more effi- cient than coordinate-measuring machines, according to Atlas quality manager John Watson.
The firm, primarily a designer and manufacturer of medium- to large-
Atlas quality manager John Watson, one of five at the firm trained to perform white-light scans, manipulates the three-camera Optigo RE head over the surface of a stamped automotive frame rail. Each snapshot covers an area 500 by 500 mm. He peers over his shoulder at the monitor behind him to track his progress as he moves over the surface to complete the scan, typically a 3- to 4-hr. process.
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sized dies to automotive OEMs and Tier One suppliers, took white-light scanning (WLS) to a new level in 2010 when it retrofitted its scanner with the Cognitens RE (reverse engineering) upgrade.
“The upgrade,” explains Watson, “captures two images with each snap- shot and averages out the data to filter out much of the noise. We find that the images are extremely accurate and useful particularly when capturing measurement data at radiuses and complex curved surfaces. It triangu-
lates everything and, rather than scan- ning and creating a lot of flat spots, it creates nice, continuous surfaces. And, also beneficial: it reduces the time to process cloud data by 30 percent or more.”
The RE model allows Atlas to oper- ate the scanner in two modes—the more traditional dimensional-meas- urement mode, and the reverse-engi- neering mode. According to Hexagon Metrology literature, here are the over- all benefits of the RE camera upgrade to its Optiva system: