PC-DMIS Tech Tip:
This video tutorial shows that with the release of PC-DMIS 2020 R2 it is now possible to dimension circularity directly on 3D feature types like cones, spheres and cylinders. Multiple cross sections are analyzed and the worst circularity is reported.
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In this video, I wanted to talk about the recent enhancements added to the circularity dimension in PC-DMIS. As you may know, for years, PC-DMIS would only evaluate circularity on one feature type, a circle. No other feature types would be accepted. Although circularity can be applied to any nominally round surface, like a cone, a cylinder, or sphere. PC-DMIS required that you first construct a circle from another feature type, then dimension circularity on that construction.
As of version 2020 R2, you can now apply circularity directly to a non-circle feature like a cone, sphere, or cylinder. PC-DMIS will then extract cross-sectional elements from the 3D feature and report the worst circularity amongst all the cross-sections. So this enhancement brings us closer to the intent of the ASME standard, where it states that "Unless otherwise specified, all tolerances apply for full depth, length, and width of the feature."
So when we take a look at a column like this one here, we see both circularity and perpendicularity applied to that cylinder feature. In the past, we would need to actually measure it twice, once as a cylinder and once as a circle. Now in PC-DMIS as of version 2020 R2, all we need to do is measure the cylinder once, and we can apply both controls to that feature. This enhancement to the circularity dimension is just one of a few updates to GD&T functionality that were added to the 2020 R2 release. That release also saw changes to profile calculations and added support for some of the less common modifiers like tangent plane and the translation modifier. Well, that's about it for this video. I hope you found it useful. Thanks for joining me, and we'll see you next time.
