In applications such as glue bead inspection, the engineer needs to verify cross-sectional volume and shape of sealant along an irregular path at equidistant points.

To achieve this type of inspection would normally require developing your own measurement tool and manually instantiating that tool along an inspection path. However, with the new Surface Track tool, the effort is made significantly faster and easier.

Surface Track Tool

The built-in Surface Track tool in Gocator® lets you perform quality control and inspection along the path that you define based on representative scan data. This tool is especially useful for inspecting materials such as glue and sealant beads. Watch the Surface Track tool video for more details.

The Surface Track tool returns global (i.e., min/max/average) width, height, offset, and continuity measurements of the specified material at defined points along the path by analyzing 3D cross-sectional shape. It also provides pass/fail counts (OK/NG), which allow you to effectively monitor material overflow and breaks. A track can be made for any shape you require.

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What Surface Track measures:

• Width of track
• Height at center
• Offset from the defined path
• Continuity (finding breaks)
• Material overflow

The main advantage of the Surface Track tool is that it removes the need to configure individual tools for each location along the measurement path.

Setting Up Your Measurement Path

Using a separate, PC-based utility called the “track editor”, the user defines the path along which the tool will perform its internal measurements. You use this track editor to configure “path” and “ruler” information on scan data from a Gocator® sensor.

Using the Tool

The Surface Track tool uses the path information uploaded from the track editor to inspect targets along the defined measurement path.

In the Gocator® web interface, the measurement track is shown in light grey; the path as a dark blue line; and rulers (i.e., pass/fail thresholds) running perpendicular to the track are represented by white lines centered on light blue dots (see below).

Dots with other colors provide additional information. For example, red dots show center points on rulers that fail at least one of the criteria set in the tool. These count toward the “No Good Count” measurement. Green dots show center points on rulers that pass the criteria set in the tool. These count toward the “OK Count” measurement. Orange dots show the peak (highest) point on the ruler.

Stay tuned for our next blog post on the Stitch Tool in Gocator® Firmware 5.1.