Industrial Computer Tomography - a Universal Inspection Tool

Over the last decade Computer Tomography (CT) has become a well recognized tool in industrial use. Today CT enables engineers from all kinds of industries to inspect objects from the smallest to the largest scale ranging from electronic devices up to complete car engines. The fast development of CT and its applications was further accelerated over the past 3 years due to the use of CT in metrology. Today CT has entered a market which so far was reserved for classical coordinate measurement devices. With this additional capability being accepted by the industries CT has become a universal inspection tool. With a single scan a CT user is able to check internal and external geometries as well as all kinds of material related aspects such as porosity or fibre orientation. Therefore CT allows a complete first article inspection using a single scan. Volume Graphics is the pioneer in industrial CT data analysis software with more than 10 years of experience in the market. This presentation will introduce the latest generation of visualization and analysis software tool – VGStudio MAX 2.0 – enabling the CT user to process data sets larger than 32 GB in size on modern PC hardware. The software allows the user to process CT data sets with high precision within a single software environment. Tools are available for tasks such as porosity analysis, to check wall-thicknesses, to compare the actual part against the nominal CAD model and to measure individual geometries. All data analysis processes can even be automated so that fast and efficient series inspection scenarios can be realized. The presentation will introduce the latest data analysis and automation concepts implemented in the software making CT a universal inspection tool. It will address, by means of customer examples, topics such as attainable measurement uncertainties and data analysis performance.