Patent ID: 7755761

Claim:
A method of locating a position to drill a hole in an object surface and drilling a normal hole in the surface, the method comprising: positioning a drill and drill bit, supported for rotational movement from a spindle, adjacent a hole mark on the object's surface, the spindle having a spindle axis centerline; automatically orienting the drill bit at a normal orientation to the surface at the hole mark, the automatically orienting operation comprising: projecting optical signals from a pair of orthogonal signal devices to form laser lines in a cross hair pattern on the surface at the hole mark, and underneath the spindle and longitudinally in line with the spindle axis centerline; using a camera having an axis of sight to obtain an image frame of the laser lines and a portion of the surface; a first one of the laser lines being projected orthogonal to the axis of sight of the camera and indicating a pitch error relative to an incidence angle of the axis of sight with the surface; a second one of the laser lines being projected in-plane to the axis of sight of the camera and indicating a roll error relative to the incidence angle of the axis of sight with the surface; the laser lines being used to assist in determining normality of said drill bit relative to said surface at said hole mark and an elevation of said drill bit above said surface; obtaining an image frame, using the camera, of the surface at the hole mark, the image frame including the laser lines; using the image frame of the laser lines to generate angular position information that includes the pitch error and the roll error for use by a processing system; using a processing system to process the angular position information to determine an inclination angle of the surface relative to the spindle axis, and without need for a predetermined computer generated model of the object; using the inclination angle to assist in positioning a drill implement directly over said position where said hole is to be drilled so that a normality error of said surface relative to said spindle is removed and said drill implement is positioned normal to said surface of said object; and drilling a hole in the surface at the hole mark so that the hole is normal to the surface of the object.