Dimensional measurement plays a critical role in product development and quality control. With the continuously increasing demand for tighter tolerances and more complex workpiece shapes in the industry, dimensional metrology often becomes the bottleneck of taking the quality and performance of manufacturing to the next level. As one kind of the most useful and powerful measuring instruments, coordinate measuring machines (CMMs) are widely employed in manufacturing industries. Since the accuracy and efficiency of a CMM have a vital impact on the product quality, productivity and manufacturing cost, the evaluation and improvement of CMM performance have always been important research topics since the invention of CMM. A novel Advanced Virtual Coordinate Measuring Machine (AVCMM) is proposed against such a background. The proposed AVCMM is a software package that provides an integrated virtual environment, in which user can plan inspection strategy for a given task, carry out virtual measurement, and evaluate the uncertainty associated with the measurement result, all without the need of using a physical machine. The obtained estimate of uncertainty can serve as a rapid feedback for user to optimize the inspection plan in the AVCMM before actual measurement, or as an evaluation of the result of a performed measurement. Without involving a physical CMM in the inspection planning or evaluation of uncertainty, the AVCMM can greatly reduce the time and cost needed for such processes. Furthermore, as the package offers vivid 3D visual representation of the virtual environment and supports operations similar to a physical CMM, it does not only allow the user to easily plan and optimise the inspection strategy, but also provide a cost-effective, risk-free solution for training CMM operators. A modular, multitier architecture has been adopted to develop the AVCMM system, which incorporates a number of functional components covering CMM and workpiece modelling, error simulation, inspection simulation, feature calculation, uncertainty evaluation and 3D representation. A new engine for detecting collision/contact has been developed and utilized, which is suitable for the virtual environment of simulated CMM inspections. A novel approach has been established to calculate errors required for the error simulation, where the data are obtained from FEA simulations in addition to conventional experimental method. Monte Carlo method has been adopted for uncertainty evaluation and has been implemented with multiple options available to meet different requirements. A prototype of the proposed AVCMM system has been developed in this research. Its validity, usability and performance have been verified and evaluated through a set of experiments. The principles for utilising the AVCMM in practical use have also been established and demonstrated. The results have indicated that the proposed AVCMM system has great potentials to improve the functionalities and overall performance of CMMs.

Digital cameras are increasingly used for measurement tasks within engineering scenarios, often being part of metrology platforms. Existing cameras are well equipped to provide 2D information about the fields of view (FOV) they observe, the objects within the FOV, and the accompanying environments. But for some applications these 2D results are not sufficient, specifically applications that require Z dimensional data (depth data) along with the X and Y dimensional data. New designs of camera systems have previously been developed by integrating multiple cameras to provide 3D data, ranging from 2 camera photogrammetry to multiple camera stereo systems. Many earlier attempts to record 3D data on 2D sensors have been completed, and likewise many research groups around the world are currently working on camera technology but from different perspectives; computer vision, algorithm development, metrology, etc. Plenoptic or Lightfield camera technology was defined as a technique over 100 years ago but has remained dormant as a potential metrology instrument. Lightfield cameras utilize an additional Micro Lens Array (MLA) in front of the imaging sensor, to create multiple viewpoints of the same scene and allow encoding of depth information. A small number of companies have explored the potential of lightfield cameras, but in the majority, these have been aimed at domestic consumer photography, only ever recording scenes as relative scale greyscale images. This research considers the potential for lightfield cameras to be used for world scene metrology applications, specifically to record absolute coordinate data. Specific interest has been paid to a range of low cost lightfield cameras to; understand the functional/behavioural characteristics of the optics, identify potential need for optical and/or algorithm development, define sensitivity, repeatability and accuracy characteristics and limiting thresholds of use, and allow quantified 3D absolute scale coordinate data to be extracted from the images. The novel output of this work is; an analysis of lightfield camera system sensitivity leading to the definition of Active Zones (linear data generation good data) and In-active Zones (non-linear data generation poor data), development of bespoke calibration algorithms that remove radial/tangential distortion from the data captured using any MLA based camera, and, a light field camera independent algorithm that allows the delivery of 3D coordinate data in absolute units within a well-defined measurable range from a given camera.

Spatial coordinate measurement systems play an important role in manufacturing and certification processes. There are many types of coordinate measurement systems including electronic theodolite networks, total station systems, video photogrammetry systems, laser tracking systems, laser scanning systems, and coordinate measuring machines. Each of these systems produces coordinate measurements containing some degree of uncertainty. Often, the results from several different types of measurement systems must be combined in order to provide useful measurement results. When these measurements are combined, the resulting coordinate data set contains uncertainties that are a function of the base data sets and complex interactions between the measurement sets. ISO standards, ANSI standards, and others, require that estimates of uncertainty accompany all measurement data. This research presents methods for quantifying the uncertainty fields associated with coupled spatial measurement systems. The significant new developments and refinements presented in this dissertation are summarized as follows: 1) A geometrical representation of coordinate uncertainty fields. 2) An experimental method for characterizing instrument component uncertainty. 3) Coordinate uncertainty field computation for individual measurements systems. 4) Measurement system combination methods based on the relative uncertainty of each measurement's individual components. 5) Combined uncertainty field computation resulting from to the interdependence of the measurements for coupled measurement systems. 6) Uncertainty statements for measurement analyses such as best-fit geometrical shapes and hidden-point measurement. 7) The implementation of these methods into commercial measurement software. 8) Case studies demonstrating the practical applications of this research. The specific focus of this research is portable measurement systems. It is with these systems that uncertainty field combination issues are most prevalent. The results of this research are, however, general and therefore applicable to any instrument capable of measuring spatial coordinates. / Ph. D.

La géométrie d'une pièce fabriquée réelle diffère de la pièce virtuelle de CAO (Conception Assistée par Ordinateur. Cette différence est due à la somme des écarts inhérents à la fabrication. L'objectif de ce travail est d’introduire des pièces virtuelles ayant des défauts de forme (Skin Model Shape) dans les applications d'ingénierie afin de répondre aux exigences croissantes de l'industrie en matière de gestion de la qualité de la géométrie des produits. Les travaux traitent de divers aspects, particulièrement de la génération de défauts de forme, de la simulation d'assemblage et de la métrologie virtuelle.Les méthodes permettant de générer des défauts de forme sur des surfaces simples sont analysés et classées. En raison des défauts de forme, la combinaison de surfaces simples pour générer une pièce entière induit une incohérence géométrique au niveau des arêtes. Une méthode globale basée sur les éléments finis et une méthode locale basée sur le lissage local de maillage sont utilisées pour résoudre ce problème.Pour prédire l'écart des caractéristiques fonctionnelles, la simulation d'assemblage est effectuée en utilisant des surfaces avec défauts de forme. Une approche est développée sur la base de la condition de complémentarité linéaire et du torseur de petits déplacements pour prendre en compte les conditions aux limites de l'assemblage, telles que les déplacements et les charges.Des méthodes pour évaluer les écarts sur les modèles de surfaces avec défauts de forme sont également étudiées. Les spécifications sur le produit sont exprimées avec GeoSpelling et évaluées à l'aide du torseur de petits déplacements. Les méthodes développées sont intégrées dans un laboratoire virtuel pour l'apprentissage en ligne.Les études susmentionnées complètent et étendent les méthodes de gestion des tolérances basées sur GeoSpelling et le « skin » modèle. / The geometry of a real manufactured part differs from the virtual workpieces designed in Computer Aided Design (CAD) systems. This difference is due to the accumulation of unavoidable manufacturing deviations. The objective of this work is to implement virtual workpieces with form defects (Skin Model Shape) in engineering applications to meet the industry’s increasing demands in product geometry quality management. Various aspects are covered here, in particular form defect generation, assembly simulation and virtual metrology.Methods to generate form defects on simple surfaces are reviewed and classified. Due to form defects, the combination of simple surfaces to generate a whole part led to inconsistency on the edges. A global FEA-based method and a local mesh smoothing based method are used to overcome this issue.To predict the deviation of functional characteristics, assembly simulation is conducted using skin model shapes. An approach is developed based on the Linear Complementarity Condition and the Small Displacement Torsor to take into account assembly boundary conditions, such as displacements and loads.Methods to evaluate deviation values on skin model shapes are also studied. Product specifications are expressed with GeoSpelling, and evaluated using the Small Displacement Torsor method. The developed methods are integrated into an online Virtual Laboratory for e-learning.The above-mentioned studies complement and extend the tolerance management methods based on GeoSpelling and skin models.