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InnovMetric has launched PolyWorks 2022, the latest version of its digital ecosystem of intelligent 3D metrology. PolyWorks 2022 offers key new features that extend the capabilities of its three ecosystem foundations:
• The universal 3D metrology platform now facilitates the inspection of a batch of items when CAD data is not available and offers a universal data center;
• Digital connectivity between data and people is enhanced, enabling the deployment of global metadata management strategies and alert scheduling that automatically detect failed dimensions and notify the right people in real time
• Collaboration between probing operators and their measuring equipment is taken to another level, thanks to mixed reality display technology that increases operators' perception of 3D metrology.
PolyWorks 2022 also demonstrates InnovMetric's commitment to open solutions, unveiling an API that allows data to be searched from its data management solution and injected into third-party software applications.
"For decades, the primary mission of 3D hardware and software manufacturers, including ourselves, has been to provide cutting-edge technologies to create data from 3D measurements. This strategy has proven to be very successful for market players and has fueled significant growth in the use of 3D measurement technologies in manufacturing companies. However, as the amount of 3D measurement data grew exponentially, new data management complexities also emerged, leading us to reconsider our company's mission. That's why, today, PolyWorks goes beyond data creation by managing data storage, opening up access to data across the enterprise, and enabling digital data flows between hardware, software, and people," said Marc Soucy, president of InnovMetric. He adds:
"Providing an API for our data management solution is a key step in the evolution of our digital ecosystem. The data we manage does not belong to us, it belongs to our customers. For this reason, we had to provide digital technology to allow customers to seamlessly transmit PolyWorks data to any software application they want to use. »
Extensions to the universal platform
Manufacturing companies often have to measure and inspect multiple items, even if they don't have access to a reliable 3D CAD representation of those items. For example, in the early stages of a product engineering cycle or after physically adjusting the design on the shop floor. To address these measurement scenarios, the PolyWorks Universal Platform offers new geometric feature measurement guidance technology to guide the probing, scanning, and extraction of geometric features when measuring and inspecting multiple items, in the absence of CAD data and nominal geometric feature components. Users can inject a CAD model and nominal components of geometric entities at any time later in the process and propagate these changes to items already measured.
The PolyWorks Universal Platform also includes a new universal data center that brings all relevant data together in one place:
• Inspection projects can be created automatically from measurement results from third-party software and digitally shared across the enterprise.
• Native CAD file readers and MBD QIF import all types of GD&T control to ensure digital interoperability with product definition processes.
• Users can also rely on a more accurate device to measure dimensional control and inject the measured value into a scanned or palpated object for reporting purposes
Improved digital connectivity for users of 3D measurement data
In a 3D metrology context, metadata consists of important attributes that describe the design of the part, the manufacture of the item, and the 3D measurement processes. PolyWorks 2022 provides meaningful and usable metadata by managing shared properties that are common to multiple inspection projects and item templates. Unified and synchronized shared properties enable search, filtering, and analysis across all centralized 3D metrology data archives.
PolyWorks 2022 also allows production teams to schedule alerts that evaluate incoming metrics and notify the right people via email, when a dimension is out of tolerance or out of control. These notifications enable real-time responsiveness because they feature a hyperlink that instantly opens the problematic item in a web-based 3D viewer. From there, users can quickly build a research team using PolyWorks' modern digital communication technologies.
More efficient probing processes thanks to mixed reality display
Mixed reality display technology improves the perception of 3D metrology by overlaying holograms on inspected items and providing an instinctive, gesture-based user interface. The PolyWorks 2022 mixed reality solution offers new visual guidance and feedback capabilities that optimize the efficiency of probing operators. In addition to overlaying the guidance geometry and measurement instructions on the inspected item, it also displays palpated points, measurement results and the digital display in real time, and allows users to remotely invoke common probing features.
