Premise
ia.cmm, the International Association of Co-ordinate Measuring Machine Manufacturers will shortly be three years old and counts among its members the majority of CMM manufacturers. Founded to support and promote the world-wide diffusion of CMM technology, ia.cmm has been serving as a competent and active partner to international organizations and scientific communities involved in the area of 3D Dimensional Metrology. ia.cmm working groups are active in the area of machine specifications, software and service to ensure users, all over the world, that the best practices in terms of verification, standardisation and maintenance are followed by our Member Companies.
Under the auspices of ia.cmm, important initiatives like OSIS (Optical Sensor Interface Standard) have grouped experts from all continents to make the integration of non contacting measuring system with CMM easy and reliable, with evident advantages for end users and machine and sensor makers. Other significant developments like DME / I++ were fully supported by our Association.
Besides continuing the beforehand mentioned programs ia.cmm activities, in the very next future, will be oriented to educational programs and to make of the ia.cmm label a warranty of quality and reliability for world-wide CMM users.
The article that follows is the first of a series of documents aimed to explain the very basics of Co-ordinate Measuring Machines; a kind of literature which may be useful to those who are approaching the CMM world for the first time and to those who wish to refresh their basic knowledge. These few pages represent the first step of the educational program that ia.cmm is now starting.
Maurizio ERCOLE
ia.cmm
Chairman of the Board
Use and scopes of the Co-ordinate Measuring Machine
The Co-ordinate Measuring Machine (CMM) is a relatively young operating unit, if compared with other kind of equipment such as Machine Tools; as a matter of fact the CMM was invented in the early sixties, since then it has become an indispensable part of any manufacturing process.
The CMM is obviously utilised to “measure” in the sense that it is capable of detecting the position of points in the space with very low uncertainty.
The meaning of the verb “to measure” is so important that borders with philosophy and would deserve an article on its own; but, for the objectives of this document let us just consider that the measurements taken by the CMM can be used for different goals and, surprisingly, the CMM can be utilised for technological activities other than measuring.
