Slicing: A Procedure for Tolerance Evaluation of Manufactured Parts Using CMM Measurement Data

This paper presents a sampling and processing procedure for tolerance evaluation of machined parts. In this method, deviations of the measured points from their ideal feature surface are evaluated in the plane where the data is measured by a Coordinate Measuring Machine (CMM). This procedure is called slicing. It is shown that the use of the structure inherent in measurement data has a potential in reducing computational complexity for evaluation of certain types of form tolerances without significant loss of accuracy. An application of the proposed method to the development of manufactured part model for automotive spaceframe structures is also discussed.