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his article describes a new solution for precise automated digitalization of large objects. The practical application is carried out with the help of a standard (imprecise) industrial robot, a near range on-line photogrammetric system and a 3-D White Light Scanner. The tracking system compensates for relatively low absolute positioning accuracy of the robot. The complete system has been successfully verified in a benchmark test for the German automobile manufacturer, AUDI.

In this test, the goal has been to provide a stable running system with outstanding characteristics in accuracy and acquisition time to digitize low volume preproduction parts for documentation and archiving. AUDI engineers want the ability to archive every part, in case they encounter problems in the following production or evaluation phase.

It was essential to the project that the aluminum and steel surfaces of the parts were scanned without any coating or treatment. This requires the system to cope with shiny and specular areas within the parts.

Because the data can be obtained without using any reference points, a complete digitalization of doors and hoods can be done in a few minutes.

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