Patent ID: 7796278

Claim:
A method for precisely measuring position of a part to be inspected at a part inspection station, the method comprising: positioning and supporting a part having a width and a part axis relative to a measurement axis at the part inspection station; scanning the positioned and supported part with an array of planes of radiation, each of the planes having a width greater than the width of the part so that the part occludes each of the planes of radiation over a measurement interval of the part to create a corresponding array of unobstructed left and right planar portions of the planes of radiation which pass by and are not blocked by the supported part wherein each of the unobstructed planar portions contains an amount of radiation which is representative of a respective geometric dimension of the part; measuring the amount of radiation present in each of the unobstructed planar portions to obtain measurement signals; processing the measurement signals to obtain a geometric measurement between the axes at the measurement interval; and storing the geometric measurement.