Measuring Trim Points On Sheet Metal Parts

[scan man]

I have a Leica Laser Tracker with T-Scan & T-Probe.
Can anyone tell me the best way to measure trim points on sheet metal parts?
In most cases I am using solid model cad files. Parts average 1.0-2.0mm thick.

[Admin]

I've never worked with scans of sheet metal parts or had to do this... sorry.

BUT, great pic for your avatar!  ;)

[jrayself]

If you have a reference model, you could just probe a boundary point cloud...

[tobiwan]

generally, i see about four ways to get the boundary points:

- probing point clouds, as jrayself already mentioned. you might have to extract a single sided reference from you solid model though. boundary point probing can be done with a shank, which makes the probing process very convenient. also, IMInspect offers to "probe and compare" the points instantly.

- scanning boundary points depends a little bit on the material and might need some training but delivers a very neat pointcloud also without a reference.

- extracting  the boundary points from a surface scan. also requires a (single sided) reference. is very convenient if you scan the part anyway. be sure, to scan the edges of the part carefully.

- extracting internal boundary point. does not need a reference and is a good (brand - new) feature for ectracting features from a line scan. is not intended to work for the outside boundary of a part though, but depending on your part's shape this limitaion could be circumvented.

[tonyv]

tobywan was absolutely right, though make sure that when you compare those points you change the comparison direction in the 'Compare Data Points' menu from 'normal to surface' to either 'along tangent at edge' or 'normal to edge'