Keeping a traceable path traversable in any direction is essential to maintaining the sanity of quality and manufacturing engineers as they move back and forth between design, manufacturing and quality inspection protocols, practices and workflows.
The new version of Verisurf CAM 2017 has more than a few new relevant features to cover for quality assurance (QA) engineers who work at manufacturing companies.
QA engineers are responsible for ensuring a high level of efficiency and accuracy on the manufacturing floor; to do this, they collect data, as well as find, make note of and propose solutions for quality issues. This means calling meetings and ensuring technical understanding between different departments and sometimes engaging in design of experiments (DOE). It all depends on where you work.
But having a great measurement software that is easy to use and customizable is absolutely key to doing the best job possible.
Verisurf CAM 2017: Overview, Features and Enhancements
Verisurf has a modular software designed to give engineers as much power to customize functionality as possible, based on standard restrictions of budgets and specific applications. All popular CAD formats work with Verisurf CAD, which allows you to optimize your solid model for manufacturing and inspection.
One of the standout features to me is Verisurf’s associative NBD, or number of defects at breakdown, for model-based inspection and layout. Verisurf also features a great device interface that makes it easy to connect to any metrology device.
Also in the new version is a feature called Verisurf Measure, which allows for precise 3D scanning of a variety of surfaces with a wide range of geometries. You can automatically perform repetitive part inspection, which will save a ton of headaches and unnecessary work.
A feature called Verisurf Build stands out because it facilitates efficient and optimized positioning of manufactured parts to their nominal locations by utilizing a combination of real-time deviation analysis with digital readouts and build arrows.
You can perform surface analysis by comparing measured points and clouds to features in a CAD model analysis, which helps reduce scrap by showing intolerances of different parts.
Verisurf Reverse allows users to create accurate meshes, surfaces and high-quality solid models from probed and scanned point cloud data.
Verisurf Project enables the programming and operation of laser projectors to facilitate placement of parts such as wire harnesses. It also gets rid of the need to use layout templates.
User Interface
The Verisurf user interface (UI) has had a complete makeover with refreshed icons and tool tips designed to help users learn any feature rapidly.
Custom Apps
The Verisurf SDK is a big boon to programmers who are eager to create custom apps using any common programming language. Working with QA engineers, who are responsible for building up a company’s quality system and maintaining it, this could save clients and workers a lot of time by having the direct ability to create a great app for a specific check, practice, workflow or manufactured good.
According to Verisurf, the apps are versatile and will run over any kind of network: local, intranet or public Internet. Verisurf can be relegated to the margins while an app is getting its swerve on by running in the background or minimized.
If you are a QA engineer for a shop or manufacturing outfit and you crank out huge volumes of the same part or assembly for months at a time, then sequences of your quality control and measurement workflows can be optimized with the right Verisurf SDK-built custom app to make inspection faster and of a better quality.
Increased Productivity of 3D Scanners and CMMs
You’ve got your stationary coordinate measuring machines (CMMs), your portable CMMs and your 3D scanners performing crucial tasks such as automated inspection, reverse engineering and guided assembly. The high degree of customizability coupled with some of the enhanced features could make Verisurf CAM 2017 a worthwhile investment, if the tool tips turn out to be as good as the company claims.
Scan Data Management
Scanning and capturing reality data is becoming more and more integral for metrological tasks and Verisurf 2017 has some new settings to collect and display scan data to ensure that your measurements are on point. In the software, you can see the max scan angle and rate, as well as the max scan inspect rate. Designate a color for a relationship between the angle of the scanner and the part to ensure that the scan data quality is high. You can also use this feature to filter out overlapping scan data to clear up confusion and save space.
Power Surface
Power Surface lets you do some pretty dynamic things with your CAD surfaces by utilizing point clouds and meshes with some controls that allow you to fill holes in CAD models with the nebulous boundaries usually found in 3D scan data.
Quirky surface profiles and aberrant boundaries can be managed with powerful statistical metrics to quantify and label the quality and fit of various generated surfaces. This feature supposedly leaves you with high-quality solid models from scan data, mesh data, or CAD model data that are ready for manufacturing.
Quality and manufacturing engineers play a vital role at the crossroads of design, manufacturing, production, administration and a company’s clients, so the better their measurement tools are and the more interoperability and flexibility they have within strict open standards parameters, the better the quality of manufacturing.
Finished part validation is the tail-end process of a huge amount of work that goes into design, engineering and manufacturing on a daily basis all over the world. Verisurf CAM 2017 is worth exploring if you are interested in a measurement solution for quality inspection, surface analysis and reverse engineering.
It is a massive upgrade and software of this magnitude has to be designed with such precision and attention to detail that it is truly mind-boggling. From model-based definition (MBD), interoperability with CMMs, CAD software to maintaining enough flexibility for programmers to create custom applications that fit the specific needs of quality and manufacturing engineers is truly a feat of engineering in the purest sense. It is about a team solving problems and incorporating feedback seamlessly into solutions that are always held in check by benchmarks that denote the previous version’s achievements.