Alignments
What is the purpose of an Alignment?
In Coordinate Measuring Machine (CMM) inspection, an Alignment establishes the relationship between the CMM's machine coordinate system and the coordinate system of the workpiece being inspected. It allows the software to understand where the part is ...
CAD Alignment (Best Fit)
What is CAD Alignment? CMM-Manager’s CAD Alignment operation is a Best-Fit alignment that optimizes the relationship between measured data and the nominal CAD model. Instead of relying on discrete datums or simple geometric features, this method fits ...
Traditional Alignments
A traditional alignment is an alignment where the programmer creates each individual step of the alignment. This may be necessary for cases where canned alignments do not cover the required use case or the programmer has some special needs. The ...
Move Part
The Move Part command is used when it is necessary to flip, or move a part in order to access features not accessible from the original setup. It can be used to rotate the part to a new orientation, or can be used if you need to shift a part along ...
Using a cylinder as a primary axis
A cylinder has a centerline that may be used as an axis in an alignment. When used as a primary axis/for leveling, unlike a plane, there is no zero point along that axis, so another feature must be used to define the origin along that axis. In the ...
Canned Alignments
Canned Alignments are pre-packaged routines that, in one program step, prompt the operator through a sequence of feature measurements which are then used to create a complete, determinant alignment. Canned alignments are generally meant for parts ...
Runtime Align Part
CMM-Manager tracks all alignment steps until the Reference Frame is determinate (fully constrained), at which time it will automatically synchronize the part program and CAD model to the current part location. When to use Runtime Align Part Whenever ...
Reference Frame Management
CMM-Manager offers many tools for managing alignments / reference frames. Tools are available for saving, recalling, listing, deleting, importing, and exporting reference frames. Saving Reference Frames Click Alignment | Save. The Save Ref Frame ...
Free Position Alignment
A Free Position Alignment is used in a part program to create rough origin point from which your program can create a determinant reference frame using DCC commands without any further operator input. A Free Position Alignment can be created online ...
Single Point Alignment
For a more flexible solution which requires a single program step, see Free Position Alignment A Single Point Alignment is used in a part program to set a rough origin point from which your program can create a determinant reference frame using DCC ...
Align Part
The Align Part command is used to realign a partially inspected part that has been physically moved on the CMM table. This can happen either by accident or because production priorities required the part to be removed from the table to allow for the ...
Align Rotary Axis to Machine Axis
Inspection workpiece mounted to 4th axis / rotary table should normally be aligned mechanically to the Machine XYZ axis system, thus features measured from one program run to the next have consistent probing access - i.e. part mounted incorrectly ...
Replacing an Alignment
It is sometimes necessary to replace an alignment method in an existing program. This may be due to a production / design change, or in order to duplicate an existing program to use for a different manufacturing operation where some features may not ...
RPS Alignment example
An RPS Alignment is used to apply constraints to features in one or more axes. When applied properly six degrees of freedom are constrained / locked in a similar fashion to a 3-2-1 alignment with the added benefit of applying offsets to each feature ...