MACHINE FOR MEASURING AND MATHEMATICALLY DEFINING THE SURFACE OF THREE-DIMENSIONAL MODELS, PARTICULARLY FOR THE MANUFACTURE OF MOLDS WITH NUMERIC-CONTROL MACHINE TOOLS

Abstract: The machine (10) for measuring and mathematically defining the surface of three-dimensional models comprises a robotized support (20) having at least three degrees of freedom, provided with actuation motors and position transducers, to support and position, in any point of space and with any orientation, a laser distance device rigidly coupled to the support (20). An electronic control unit (30) controls the movements of the robotized support (20) according to electric signals arriving from the laser distance device and from the position transducers, and an electronic processing unit (40) memorizes on a magnetic support numeric information corresponding to the coordinates of points on the surface (S) to be measured.

Description: The present invention relates to a machine for measuring and mathematically defining the surface of three-dimensional models, particularly for the manufacture of molds by means of automated systems comprising numeric-control machine tools. The preliminary execution of a three-dimensional model of the part or article to be reproduced in series with the subsequent molding process is fundamentally important for the design and manufacture of molds intended for the production of sheet-metal elements or plastic products for the car industry or for the manufacturing industry in general. The three-dimensional model - generally in soft material such as plasticine, polystyrene, wood, resin or the like - in fact allows to check the styling of the design and its accurate preliminary aerodynamic and/or structural testing where required, but it is most of all the starting point for the subsequent manufacture of the mold. Devices for the three-dimensional measurement of models, capable of supplying an electronic processing system (so-called CAD-CAM systems) with the Cartesian coordinates of a set of points of the model's surface to obtain the so-called mathematical definition of the surface, have been recently produced for this purpose. Currently known and employed measurement devices generally use mechanical surface feelers which, though they achieve their purpose, have hardly negligible disadvantages and limitations in use. These disadvantages and limitations are substantially constituted by the need to limit the scanning rate, i.e. the rate at which the feeler explores the surface, in order to ensure a correct feeler-surface contact; the structural complexity and therefore the cost of mechanical feelers; the possibility of jamming and the need to correlate the shape of the measurement feeler to that of the tool of the machine which generates the mold to reduce the complexity of the programs for processing the information transmitted by said feeler. The method of scanning with a laser beam has been taught by DE-A-34 30 217. DE-A-34 30 217 remains however completely silent on determining the outline coordinates of a scanned object. A system for constructing and manipulating models of three-dimensional objects has been disclosed in the IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics, Vol. SMC-12, No. 3, May/June 1982, T. Hasegawa: "An Interactive System for Modeling and Monitoring a Manipulation Environment", pages 250-258. The known system provides for a laser pointer as a measuring tool and a display monitor for visualizing measured data. Position measurement in the tree-dimensional world is based on triangulation. Therefore, calculation of the position spot vector proves very elaborate. A similar systems with a laser pointer is taught by the WO-A-85/00316. However, WO-A-85/00316 also teaches an elaborate and complicated method for determining outline coordinates. A further system for measuring three-dimensional coordinates is disclosed by US-A-4 688 184. This known system provides for a distance measuring device that is based on a light source and a corresponding sensor which measures position according to the correlation between the amount of light projected and the amount of light received. The distance measuring device, according to US-A-4 688 184, does not prove accurate enough for machine tools with numeric control. Therefore, it is an aim of the present invention is to eliminate these disadvantages. In particular, an important object of the present invention is to provide a machine for measuring the surfaces of three-dimensional models, capable of allowing a significant increase in the scanning rate of the points of the surface without affecting their correct measurement. Another particular and important object of the present invention is to provide a machine capable of providing measurement data adapted to allow a significant simplification of the subsequent processing procedures intended to generate the control signals for the machine tool. A further important object of the present invention is to provide a machine capable of correctly and rapidly measuring three-dimensional surfaces no matter how complicated their shape is, in particular having accentuated curvature variations and even very small connecting radii. These objects, and others which will become apparent hereinafter are achieved by a machine for measuring and mathematically defining the surface of three-dimensional models as defined in the accompanying claims. According to an advantageous embodiment of the present invention, the robotized support is of the type having six degrees of freedom, defined by a set of three linear movements and by a set of three rotary movements, and the measuring head comprises a pair of laser distance measurement devices mounted side by side at a preset distance from one another, so that during the movement of the head on the surface of the model the two electric signals (preferably in terms of voltage) arriving from the distance measurement devices supply the control unit with the information related to the distance variations of the first and of the second measurement device from the homologous points of the scanned surface. The control unit obtains from the electric signals proportional to the distance variations and from those arriving from the position transducers of the robotized support all the information required to control the motion of said support along the generic scanning path defined by the intersection of a plane with the surface to be measured; said information being constituted by the coordinates of the generic point P of the surface and by the components of the vector W normal to the surface at P with respect to a reference system rigidly associated with the base of the machine. Further purposes, characteristics and advantages of the present invention will become apparent from the following detailed description and with reference to the accompanying drawings, wherein: figure 1 is a schematic perspective view of the machine and the related control system, figure 2 is an enlarged-scale detail view of figure 1, figure 3 is a functional block diagram of a known laser distance measurement device with which the measuring head of the machine of figure 1 is equipped, figure 4 is a diagram illustrating the method of operation of the measuring head with two distance measurement devices, figure 5 is a vector diagram illustrating the determination of the vector normal to the surface to be measured in the generic point being considered. In figure 1, the reference numeral 10 indicates the machine according to the present invention, which comprises a known gate structure defined by uprights 11, side members 12 and crosspieces 13, arranged along a set of three Cartesian reference axes x, y and z. The members 12 have guides (not illustrated) for the retention and sliding of a movable crosspiece 14 actuated by an electric actuation motor (not illustrated) which produces, by means of a known type of transmission, advantageously of the rack-and-pinion type, the translatory motion of the crosspiece in the direction of the axis x parallel to said members. The movable crosspiece 14 has a retention and sliding guide for a slider 15 movable parallel to the crosspieces 13 in the direction of the axis y, which in turn supports a column 16 which is vertically movable in the direction of the axis z. The slider 15 and the column 16 are also controlled by respective electric motors which, by means of known transmissions, produce the translatory motions thereof in the respective directions of motion. At the lower end of the column there is a support 20 capable of performing - by virtue of respective electric movement motors - rotations α, β , γ about three mutually orthogonal axes. The support 20, termed "robotized" in the present description, is therefore of the type with six degrees of freedom, being subject to three linear movements and to three rotary movements, all measurable by means of corresponding position transducers of a per se known type, not shown in the drawings. A measuring head 21, intended to scan the three-dimensional surface S of the model M to be measured, is rigidly associated with the support 20. According to the present invention, the measuring head 21 comprises at least one laser distance measurement device 22, the structure whereof - which is per se known - is illustrated in detail in figure 3. This measurement device, manufactured by RM Techniques De Pointe S.A., Corcelles-Le-Jorat, CH-1099, substantially comprises a control circuit CP, an LED L and a focusing lens system SL. The LED L emits a beam of infrared laser light which is focused onto the object (the model M) to be scanned by the lens system SL. The beam, reflected by the object, is also subject to diffusion, and the diffused beam is refocused, by means of a second lens system SL1, onto a solid-state detector R. As the distance D of the object from the measurement device varies, the refocused beam strikes different regions of the detector R. An electronic amplifier circuit CA transduces this displacement into a voltage V proportional to the variation ±e of the distance D. The voltage V, together with the signals arriving from the position transducers associated with the robotized support 20, is used by an electronic control unit 30 to produce electric signals adapted to actuate six electric motors for the movement of the robotized support 20 so as to keep the measuring head 21 at a constant distance from the surface S to be scanned. According to an advantageous embodiment of the present invention, two laser distance measurement devices 22a-22b are used to supply the control unit 30 with a further item of information - constituted by the difference between the two output voltages Va-Vb - intended to also keep the head 21 orthogonal to the surface S to be measured. For this purpose, the measurement devices 22a-22b rigidly coupled to the support 20 are arranged side by side at a preset mutual distance d. In this manner, as clearly shown in figure 4, the beam emitted by the measurement device 22a moves along the path 1, which is the locus of the points of intersection P of the surface S to be measured with a generic plane A; and the beam emitted by the measurement device 22b moves along an adjacent path 1' which is the locus of the homologous points P'. This allows to measure the coordinates XP, YP and ZP of the generic point P of the path 1 and to calculate the components WX, WY and WZ of the vector W normal to the surface. In fact, as clearly shown in figure 5, the vector W is a result of the external product W = V U between the vector U calculated from the points measured (self-acquired) along the path 1 and the vector V calculated from the homologous points P' measured (self-acquired) along the path 1' and resulting from the variation, within the margin ±e, of the operating distance D of the measurement devices. An electronic processing unit 40 converts the information XP-YP-ZP and WX-WY-WZ into numeric values adapted to be stored on the magnetic support of said unit to constitute the mathematical representation of the surface S of the model, from which, by means of successive and known processing, the information required to perform the numeric control of the machines which generate the mold is extracted.

Claims: Machine for measuring and mathematically defining the surface of three-dimensional models, particularly for manufacturing molds with numeric-control machine tools, the machine further comprising, in combination: a robotized support (20) with at least three degrees of freedom, provided with corresponding actuation motors and with position transducers, to support and position, in any point of space and with any orientation a measuring head (21) rigidly coupled to the support (20); an electronic control unit (30) capable of controlling the movements of the robotized support (20) according to the electric signals arriving from the measuring head (21) and from the position transducers; and an electronic processing unit (40) adapted to memorize on a magnetic support numeric information corresponding at least to the coordinates of the points of the surface to be measured, CHARACTERIZED IN THAT the measuring head (21) comprises at least two laser distance measurement devices (22a,22b) mounted side by side at a preset mutual distance, so that during the motion of the head (21) on the surface (S) of a model (M) two respective electric signals arriving from said distance measurement devices (22a,22b) supply the control unit (30) with the information related to the distance variations of the homologous points of the scanned surface (S) which belong to the path (1) traced by the first measurement device (22a) and to the adjacent and flanking path (1') traced by the second measurement device (22b), said two electric signals arriving from said distance measurement devices (22a,22b) providing coordinates of the generic points (P) which belong to the path (1) traced by the first measurement device (22a) and the components of the vector ( W ) normal to the surface (S) in said generic points (P) as a result of the external product ( W = V ∧ U ) between a first vector ( U ) calculated from said generic points (P) measured along said path (1) and a second vector ( V ) calculated from the homologous points (P') measured along the adjacent path (1'). Machine according to claim 1, characterized in that the robotized support (20) is of the type with six degrees of freedom defined by a set of three linear movements and by a set of three rotary movements and in that it comprises six movement motors and six position transducers.

Inventors: LEVI MONTALCINI, PIERA, RACCIU, ANTONIO
Applicants: ADVANCED DATA PROCESSING ADP S.R.L.
Application year: 1988
Main classification: G05B17
IPC codes: G05B19