Profile Overall Evaluation? How does one do this?

[[Si...]]

How do I get the CMM to evaluate the Profile feature? I do not have Curve Software if that is required.
Do I create planes and recall them all?

Been doing a lot of Profile Features lately and I think I may require some additional information to accurately create my characteristics.

Thanks.

KIMG0369.JPG

[[Ja...]]

I'm not sure if this is because I have the Curve software, but in the [CAD] dropdown menu on the toolbar, I go into "Creating Features...". In here I have, near the bottom, options for 2D and 3D curves. Do you have these options?

[[De...]]

If they are all cylinders and planes then you can just scan them as cylinders and planes, then make a profile characteristic for each one, finally use a 'maximum' characteristic to report the overall maximum for all the profile characteristics you created.

Since they will all have the same datum reference frame in each characteristic you will still meet simultaneous requirement even though they are multiple individual characteristics.

[[Si...]]

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I have them, But I can not utilize them due to not having Curve. Creating the feature would've been my go to.

[[Cl...]]

What about "General Surface"? Doesn't this option come
standard? I have never used it, has anyone else?

Surface profile does accept this feature for evaluation.

[[Si...]]

So what is the Characteristic FORM used for?

[[Cl...]]

Form to its self, not relative to any datum.

[[Si...]]

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Could that be used for Profile ? Like if I need to know that features Profile to itself with no datum called out?

[[Cl...]]

Not sure, I don't believe so. You could do a little experiment. Measure a
feature and evaluate it both ways (surface profile & Form). If there is no
difference, there's your answer.

[[To...]]

I am going to guess that C is a plane and the intent of this profile is to check perpendicularity of the entire perimeter to C.

IMO, I feel Free Form Surfaces is really the only way to do this "easily".

[[An...]]

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Perpendicularity?
Could you please elaborate?

[[Aa...]]

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See that kind of situation all the time. The profile is an "extruded" shape (not that the workpiece was generated by extrusion). The extrusion should be perpendicular to a planar face.

For an extremely simple example, think of a ring gauge. Generally, the faces of a ring gauge don't need to be perpendicular, but say for a special use one did. One could call the face -A-, and then apply a profile to the ID with the DRF |A|. That would control the shape of the ID as well as it's orientation to the face.

[[To...]]

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I realize the attached document does not match the OP's application but this might help elaborate.... Since, we don't have the complete drawing, I am only making a guess on the interpretation.

Profile to 1 Datum.pdf

[[Wo...]]

I see the "all around" symbol there.

If the outside surface is all planes and cylinders I would extract them as such, scan them as best as I can, and do surface profile characteristic on all of them separately. Then just recall the maximum result.

Just like Derek said.

If its some non uniform areas, I would just use "General Surface" feature.

[[An...]]

Here is my point of view.
See attached.

Composite_Profile_1.pdf

[[To...]]

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In essence, you're checking the perpendicularity of all of the surfaces to A.

[[To...]]

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If the profile was fully constrained, i.e. A, B and C, then I would agree. Since there is only one datum, all surfaces would have to be evaluated simultaneously.

[[An...]]

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See attached.

Profile_and_Datum_A_1.pdf

[[To...]]

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Andreas, Unfortunately, I can't make sense of your drawing so I don't understand what you're trying to say. Anyway, the shape of the tolerance zone when related to datum A is the same whether it Profile or Perpendicularity. In the OP's example, ALL surfaces have to be evaluated at the same time so we can't use perpendicularity.

[[To...]]

This would be a good part, too.

[[De...]]

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In any situation that there are multiple features called out to the same Datum Features in the same order with the same modifiers the characteristics need to be evaluated simultaneously, and calling each characteristic out using the same Datum Feature in the their respective DRFs should accomplish this goal, so I am assuming you mean something more must be done since Calypso might not properly constrain the DRF with only one Datum.

Personally I believe there is a strong argument to made that if Calypso cannot handle a call out with only one Datum Feature than perhaps it should be fixed? But that said we work with the tools we have not the ones we wish we had.

This can still be done fairly easily, assuming our one Datum feature is a plane (and I believe we are still assuming since no one has verified this so far). The plane will lock rotation in two axes and translation along one axis, this leaves us locking rotation around one axis and translation along two axes.

So what are we to do with no specific Datum features to work to? Well the answer is pretty simple, we use the features to be checked to lock the final rotation and the final two axes of translation as we would have to if checking the part on a surface plate.

First create an alignment that is not fully defined, use the Datum Plane for Spatial Rotation and for whatever axis it locks translation in. Other than that leave this alignment blank. This locks in every degree of freedom the plane can provide us.

Now create a Geometry best fit alignment which uses the alignment we just created and select all your features that need to be checked for profile. Allow this best fit to move in the One rotation we need and the two translations we need. This locks all of the rest of our degrees of freedom while using the first alignment we created to lock in the others.

Now create a couple theoretical features and assign the best fit alignment to them.

So we can create a Circle and a 3D Line, the circle can be used as a datum to lock the two translations and the 3D Line can be used to clock rotations.

So now in your profiles use the Plane first, follow this with the circle and then the line.

This way we have fully constrained the DRF but we created the datums we used to do it from the features themselves by locking them together in a geometry best fit that by its very nature provides a simultaneous fit.

[[To...]]

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I keep forgetting about the "work-arounds".

[[To...]]

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Don't the undefined degrees of freedom fall back to the Base Alignment, or the alignment listed at the top?

[[Aa...]]

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That depends. Do you mean the tools we wish Zeiss would give us, or the ones our employers might get from somewhere else?

[[De...]]

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If we were to simply use this alignment as is, then the remaining degrees of freedom would be 'inherited' from the Base alignment or from whatever alignment we selected from the dropdown.

In this case though we are using this alignment as a starting point for our best fit, so though the extra degrees of freedom are in fact inherited from the base alignment, they are overridden by the Geometry Best Fit when we allow it to best fit those degrees of freedom that are not locked by the Datum Plane.

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I was only using it as a figure of speech, however in this case I really just wish Zeiss would fix this annoying issue which has been there for years and years.