Tolerance Representation and Analysis in Industrial Inspection

Abstract

In this work we address the problem of tolerance representation and analysis across the domains of industrialinspection using sensed data, CAD design, and manufacturing. Instead of using geometric primitives in CAD models todefine and represent tolerances, we propose the use of stronger methods that are completely based on the manufacturingknowledge for the objects to be inspected. We guide our sensing strategies based on the manufacturing process plans for theparts that are to be inspected and define, compute, and analyze the tolerance of the parts based on the uncertainty in thesensed data along the different toolpaths of the sensed part. We believe that our new approach is the best way to unifytolerances across sensing, CAD, and CAM, as it captures the manufacturing knowledge of the parts to be inspected, asopposed to just CAD geometric representations.