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Creaform Inc.
Innovative technologies, mobility, and flexibility in measurement technology are playing a major role for more and more companies. In addition to fixed coordinate measuring machines (CMMs) or traditional measurement arms, optical systems are increasingly becoming established in measurement…
Mike Figliuolo
PowerPoint is the devil’s instrument, and when you use it, you risk becoming a musician in his demonic orchestra. All of us are required to give presentations in some form or fashion at various points in our careers. If you’d like to succeed in those efforts, there are three things you should never…
Dave K. Banerjea
Like so many other business software applications, calibration management software has evolved from simple beginnings as a digital index-card system that reminded operators when their instrument and tool calibrations were due. During the past 25 years, these systems have matured and are more…
Siemens PLM Software
Wood Stone Corp. captured American’s love for high-quality pizza and many other dishes when it started its stone-hearth cooking equipment business, eventually becoming world-renowned and the leading manufacturer in the industry. The company is especially popular for its wood-fired oven used by…
MIT News
MIT engineers have devised a way to measure the mass of particles with a resolution better than an attogram—one millionth of a trillionth of a gram. Weighing these tiny particles, including both synthetic nanoparticles and biological components of cells, could help researchers better understand…
FARO
Today’s new 3D metrology technology is making an impact on the design of championship Indy race cars. Andretti Autosport uses 3D metrology and laser scanning technology for applications in design, reverse engineering, and quality assurance. Advancement in, and simplification of, technologies such…
Shimadzu
International standards ISO 6892 and JIS Z2241 for tensile testing of metallic materials have been revised with the addition of another test item: strain rate control.
When strain is measured with an extensometer, strain rate control has been added as a test item to the current stress rate…
NIST
The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has developed prototype calibration tools for an experimental medical imaging technique that offers new advantages in diagnosing and monitoring certain cancers and possibly other medical conditions.1
NIST designed, constructed and tested…
Ryan E. Day
For the dreamer, high-tech enthusiast, and entrepreneur, 3D printing, also known as additive manufacturing, seems to embody the promise of what could be. Forward-thinking companies like Ford Motor Co., GE, and Mattel have been using 3D printing for R&D since the 1980s. However, the caveats…
Ron Hicks
As we all look forward to 2014, I ask you to keep the new CMS certification program in mind, whether you are a beginner or veteran metrologist. Our certification committee is working hard to build a program that is beneficial to our membership, as well as future members of our organization.
This…
Untitled Document
Although 80 percent of Accurex’s business lies in the industrial application of precision metrology and scanning, the company always enjoys the occasional cultural heritage project. When the Accurex team was called upon to scan the Sphinx of Hatshepsut, it was ready for the…
The NOvA (NuMI off-axis νe appearance) experiment is looking to answer fundamental questions about neutrinos and the role they play in the universe. NOvA will use two detectors, a near detector located underground at Fermilab in Batavia, Illinois, and a far detector located 810 km from Fermilab…
Creaform Inc.
Creaform Inc., developer of the Handyscan 3D laser scanner, was recently acquired for approximately $120 million by AMETEK Inc., a global manufacturer of electronic instruments and electro-mechanical devices.
Creaform was formed in 2002 in Lévis, Québec, Canada, near Québec City. In 2005, the…
Frank Hitzel, Nils Anspach, Endré Majorovits, Fabian Peréz-Willard
The AFM Option for the ZEISS MERLIN series combines a high-end, atomic force microscope (AFM) with a scanning electron microscope (SEM) to produce in situ, high-resolution AFM measurements in the SEM. The combination opens up new possibilities for characterizing nanostructures.
With the AFM,…
Shaun Wissner
Last month, we started talking about data with the focus mainly on data management (aka data analysis) and only referencing data collection for a bit of context. Now I want to turn to data collection. Data collection is mostly about uncertainty (in this case “measurement uncertainty”) and more…
Juliana dos Reis Derceli, Juliana Jendiroba Faraoni-Romano, Regina Guenka Palma-Dibb
D ental erosion, a process that can cause demineralization and damage on dental substrate, is widely studied due to its high incidence within all age groups. Several techniques are used to analyze erosive lesions, including roughness measurement, profilometry, and morphological analysis of the…
William Fetter
The Internet was abuzz recently about the revelation that according to a high-school class experiment, Oreo Double Stuf cookies are, in fact, not double stuffed but only 1.86 percent stuffed. The original blog post by the math teacher was actually made on March 3, 2013, but not discovered as “news…
MIT News
MIT chemical engineers have discovered that arrays of billions of nanoscale sensors have unique properties that could help pharmaceutical companies produce drugs—especially those based on antibodies—more safely and efficiently.
Using these sensors, the researchers were able to characterize…
NIST
Three-dimensional (3D) scanners used at crime scenes for forensic investigations aren’t just the stuff of prime time television. Investigators and crime laboratories do use 3D laser scanning measurement systems to measure and model critical aspects of crime scenes. But during the ensuing legal…
Ron Hicks
For the Coordinate Metrology Society, CMSC 2013 will be recognized as a landmark year in its quest to provide state-of-the-art information and best practices to the metrology industry. Twenty-seven technical presentations were delivered at this conference, and I could not be more impressed with the…
Erik Klaas, Arun Chhabra, Pia Böttcher
This article is about how augmented reality (AR) techniques can change the way we use measurement equipment. Three applications are presented to demonstrate how much easier, faster, and more intuitive an inspection task gets through gesture control (GC) and presenting information on the inspected…
Belinda Jones
Location, location, location! Last month, a diverse assortment of metrologists, scientists, engineers, quality control specialists, manufacturers, educators, and students streamed into the 2013 Coordinate Metrology Systems Conference (CMSC). This annual event was staged at the beautiful Sheraton…
Shaun Wissner
In the world of metrology, there has been a longstanding confusion regarding data management vs. data collection. According to the Data Management Association (DAMA), “data management is the development, execution, and supervision of plans, policies, programs, and practices that control, protect,…
NIST
Researchers from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the University of North Carolina have demonstrated a new design for an instrument, a “instrumented nanoscale indenter,” that makes sensitive measurements of the mechanical properties of thin films—ranging from auto body…
Phys.org
A bright future beckons for a University of Huddersfield metrology instrumentation designer who has recently completed his doctorate, won a national award, and will now embark on a project to bring a patented product to the market.
It was a master of science in control systems and instrumentation…
