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Are you measuring the exact same area of the plane each time with the same measurement strategy? Are you taking enough points to adequately define the plane? BTW... if you are putting the part on a granite plate and running an indicator across it, you're checking parallelism, not flatness.

Hello, We recently upgraded the PC running Zeiss Inspect 2023 for Windows 11. Since this upgrade, we are having several programs where the report pages are experiencing this "denim"-like texturing. For most of the affected pages, the surface comparison is overlayed to CAD, which is made transparent in properties. I am uncertain if this is related to Win 11 specifically, or if certain graphics settings were not set the same as they were on the previous setup. The issue seems to be isolated to the report pages, as when you 3D View From Report Page, the 3D scene is fine. Any troubleshooting tips would be appreciated. Thanks!

"GD&T Flatness is very straight forward. It is a common symbol that references how flat a surface is regardless of any other datums or features." This has always been my understanding of flatness, very straight forward, and only checked to itself, low to high points. So can someone help me understand why the alignment of the part has an affect on flatness? I wanted to just take a quick look at a surface, so I made a plane and a circle to locate the part. Rotation in space = plane, Z origin = plane, X/Y origin a simple circle in the bore, the part in rotationally symmetric so no Planar rotation. My flatness result is .0017" So I changed the alignment, added an additional circle in the bore, created a 3d line using the 2 circles. Rotation in space = 3d line, Z origin = plane, X/Y origin = 3d line, no planar. Result is .0007", which is much closer to what I can see manually running and indicator over the surface on a granite table. If flatness is only checked to itself, why does my alignment affect the result? Flatness is so simple that I feel really dumb that I can't wrap my head around where the extra .001" is coming from, because clearly I am introducing it. Thanks.

@Chad Watton That's a good point. I just checked all of the probes look to be as they should.

You can use a CAD presentation to report surface profile in Piweb. It won't plot a section view like a line profile because it's not a 2d element. If you use separate section cuts, like curves, to create your surface then you can plot those.

You can also use the largest probe diameter that will accurately measure the surface, as the high points are usually the mating surface and you'll generally get a smoother probed surface to work with.

No error message. Calypso is just unresponsive. All other functions work properly.

I've measured on some metal 3d printed parts and I know exactly the type of surface you are talking about. Joseph pretty much nailed it. There are two types of strategies I choose to work with. You either scan the crap out of it using a very heavy point density. Or you can use the minimum number of points required for the feature. It'd be a good idea to coordinate with engineering to decide exactly where the points should be taken. Kinda like datum locators on castings.

I imagine it is like measuring cast features. If you are scanning with a Ruby probe you may want to consider single touch points, so you do not wear your probe out scanning. This in turn will throw your data out even worst. You might be able to use a different probe material that are more expensive that will be able to scan without premature wear. Silicon nitride probes are what you would be looking for. I haven't tried this personally; in the past I could get away with single touch points. With the ladder option you may have luck with the filter/outlier elimination settings to filter out crap data points. It is hard to filter everything though. Hopefully other users can provide more input.

@Ryan BorgWhen using the XTR, its very possible that a probe is qualified at the wrong rotation. Check you stylus geometry screen to make sure everything is as you would expect it. For example, a probe facing +x could have been qualified in the -Y direction. I've had operators screw this up in the past. My second point: There is absolutely nothing wrong with using circles for setting rotation.

For those of us stuck in older versions Here's the neat part 😘 ZEISS INSPECT 2023 or later

For those of us that are stuck in older versions😂 Here's the neat part: ZEISS INSPECT 2023 or later

The allowable edit time expired. Too many plots, though. 11 pages.

Our company uses metal 3D printing to manufacture parts. After printing, the parts get machined to bring them into tolerance wrt our drawings, but a couple of the features are left as-is and are used as datums. The surface of these features is very rough (think like a metal file, or sandpaper), and anything you measure wrt them tends to be a total crapshoot; Sometimes I will end up with, for example, a position that is OOT by 1-3mm and my bosses aren't happy. What are some best practices I can follow for measuring rough-textured surfaces? Obviously I don't expect them to fall into tolerance, I just want to be able to say I am doing the best I can and the outages aren't anything on my end. Ex. polylines vs. single points, filter settings, etc. Thanks!

I agree that the drawing needs help. I am currently trying to get the customer to open up with their inspection methodology so I can get on the same page. Can I mix bi-lateral and unequal distribution tolerances? UPDATE Looks like this will work just fine. I knew about the segmented tolerances but didn't know I could select it for a "shape of zone". Thank you.

Interesting. Does Calypso give you an error message or does it just not do anything when clicking the model after saving?

I power cycled the computer but I have not the machine I will have to try that

Having an issue extracting features from CAD model. CAD model loads correctly. I can extract features from the model, define points on the model, everything is normal. Then when I save the program, I am no longer to do any of that. Can still create characteristics, and create features using probe, but no longer able to extract directly from CAD model. Any thoughts?

Understandable. One last suggestion (which you may have already tried) is power cycling the machine and your PC. Many an issue has been cleared from a hard reset for me over the years. Best of luck and hope you get your issue resolved soon.

@Don M. I am not the only alignment that is set up in the program is the base. I have a call into Zeiss the machine has since started doing other strange things and I fear I have sensor going out.

My normal routine is to load a CAD model, immediately go to CAD > Modification > CAD Model transformation and rotate about the axes until I have the model oriented in the same direction as it is sitting on the table. I don't worry about translations as the BA usually handles that with no issues. However, if the trihedron is in unusual orientation, I do the steps listed below. Another method is to create a base alignment by assigning the desired features to the Spatial , Planar and origins. For example, if you extract a plane that you want in the +Z direction and it is in the +X direction according to the model's trihedron, assign it to the Spatial / Rotation in Space. It will detect that the plane is facing the +X direction in the dropdown menu on the right. Select +Z and it will rotation the lighter trihedron to show Z facing up. Next, I would assign that plane to the Z Origin. If I am using a circle/cylinder for the X/Y origin, I like to assign it to the X and Y origin before working on the Planar. Then, assign the planar feature but I pay attention to the direction dropdown menu to make sure it gets assigned properly. There is a good possibility that it will choose the wrong direction because of the orientation of the model. It doesn't know that you are changing the orientation as it is working from the original trihedron's orientation. I check the orientation and location of the "lighter" trihedron to make sure it is located and oriented the way I want. Then, I click OK and the original "bold" trihedron moves to the desired location. This process works well when the original trihedron is at a weird orientation. Here's where I take a few more steps. I delete the features the I created for the BA. I go back into the BA and create a "NEW" BA. The reason for this is when I extracted the features in the first pass, the properties of those features were based on the model in its' original orientation and in some cases, it will create odd behavior for some strategies. Below, is an example of what I mean. By re-creating the BA alignment with new features, the feature's coordinate systems make more sense. Now, you might say "why waste the time, it really doesn't matter" and you would be right but I prefer to have my features in a structured format. i.e. when working on strategies, I occasionally work in the "feature's coordinate system" and if it's skewed or in a different orientation, it is a bit more challenging. It's a personal preference.

Roman, is RDS-CAA possibly capable of this , potentially in a future update ? I have managed to inspect a gear with VAST XTR.

Are you doing all these CAD transformations before you do the base alignment? For example, you pull in your model, then adjust it to fit the trihedron. If so, you don't need to do that. Pull in your model, then select the features used for your base alignment. You'll see a new trihedron show up with the correct orientation, once you create your base alignment, it will snap to that orientation. If for some crazy reason you were insistent on having the coordinate system in the correct location BEFORE you made your base alignment, then it'd be easier to pull it into solidworks first and create your coordinate system there.

Peculiar. Ryan, are you using a start alignment in the program by chance?

@Keith Forche I have that's actually the program I have been showing is the second version. Which is why the center features are not showing in the screen shots