Customer Profile - Winter 2008

In business for 75 years, Mitutoyo has become the leading metrology company in the world with a full range of dimensional measurement tools, instruments and systems. Its MCOSMOS® coordinate measuring machine (CMM) software is the industry standard in the jet engine market. By combining highly intuitive, icon-based programming with the ability to import native CAD models, MCOSMOS enables users to easily import part and fixture models and place them, on- or off-line, in a CMM.

Mitutoyo’s two largest customers -- Rolls Royce and Blades Technology Ltd., as well as GE, Pratt & Whitney, and Lufthansa – use the CMM software to check high precision machined parts such as turbine blades against specifications throughout each phase of the manufacturing process. Companies such as Playmobil and Lego use MCOSMOS to construct toy parts by digitizing a design model and making the plastic forms from the results.

MCOSMOS provides an advanced 3D surface-analysis program for comparing measurement data from three-dimensional surfaces with nominal data generated from a CAD model and graphically defines the CMM, racks, probes and styli. Selected graphically, all measurement points are clearly displayed on a 3D graphic view. Animation enables offline running of part programs before placing a part in the CMM, providing machine access verification and collision avoidance.

MCOSMOS uses Spatial’s 3D InterOp suite to import IGES, VDA-FS, and STEP formats; as well as ACIS and UGS Parasolid. HOOPS is used for graphical reporting, such as color shaded services to depict deviations from the ideal model.

MCOSMOS customers benefit from the efficiency of the InterOps translators, where the speed of import and display time has improved over time, especially important with today’s models that are measured in gigabytes rather than megabytes. Large models that used to take a few hours to be read in, now take mere minutes.

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