Editor’s note: FARO is offering a free webinar on portable arms and software on Tuesday, July 16, 2013, at 11 a.m. Pacific. Click here to register.

Articulating arms, also known 3D measurement arms, are portable coordinate measuring machines (CMMs) that determine and record the location of a probe in 3D space and report the results through software. The name derives from the actual look of the hardware, which resembles a human arm with a shoulder, elbow, forearm, and a wrist.

To determine the position of a probe, the arms contain proprietary glass discs in each joint, called encoders, that calculate the probe’s position as the arm moves freely throughout its workspace.

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