Establishing circle and circular-cylinder references using computational geometric techniques

Abstract

Form deviations of cylindrical features present in the manufactured parts are measured using coordinate measuring machine (CMM) and expressed as circularity or cylindricity errors evaluated using appropriate reference features. In the present work, computational geometric techniques are used to establish a circle as reference feature, and a heuristic algorithm is proposed to get a unique convex inner hull. Using the concept of equi-distant lines and diagrams, minimum circumscribed (MC), maximum inscribed (MI), and minimum zone (MZ) circles are established. For the first time, algorithms purely based on computational geometric concepts have been developed in the present work to arrive at MC, MI, and MZ circular cylinders. As the algorithms and the implementation details are explained with simple data sets, the practitioners can easily understand these methods and implement them in CMMs for the evaluation of circularity and cylindricity errors. The algorithms are also tested on larger datasets, and in all cases, accurate results are obtained in less than a second.