InnovMetric Case Study
Market: Metrology, Software Development, Manufacturing Quality Control
Our experience with Spatial SDKs and the integration team has been very positive. We had been using the Connect SDK with ACIS for many years and recently transitioned to the newer UConnect SDK, which offers a more modern, object-oriented API, additional features, and improved performance.
The Company
InnovMetric is an independent software development company headquartered in Quebec City, Canada, specializing in advanced industrial 3D metrology solutions. Founded in 1994, the company has been a pioneer in the field, introducing point-cloud-based dimensional inspection in 2000 and the concept of a universal 3D metrology software platform in 2006. Today, InnovMetric serves over 26,000 customers across 100 countries, with the world’s largest industrial manufacturers adopting its PolyWorks® solutions as their standard 3D metrology software platform. Serving industries including automotive, aerospace, consumer products, heavy machinery, and energy, InnovMetric helps organizations improve efficiency, reduce errors, and accelerate time to market.
THE POLYWORKS|INSPECTOR™ SOFTWARE SOLUTION
At the core of InnovMetric’s offering is PolyWorks|Inspector™, a powerful universal 3D metrology software platform designed to streamline dimensional inspection from first article inspection to in-process control. The platform interfaces seamlessly with a wide range of portable and CNC measurement devices, including 3D scanners, probing systems, and CMMs. This hardware independence allows companies to standardize their inspection processes, regardless of the measurement technology involved, reducing training efforts and ensuring consistent methodologies across teams, sites, and technologies. At its core, PolyWorks|Inspector delivers robust CAD model based dimensional inspection tools, enabling precise comparison between measured data and CAD models, supporting GD&T, surface analysis, and feature control.
The Challenge
Accurate and Reliable Native CAD Translation for Dimensional Inspection In CAD-based inspection, the CAD model is the foundation of the entire workflow. It is used to define inspection requirements, align measurement data, extract measurement components, display color map comparisons, plan CNC CMM execution paths, detect collisions, and generate contextual inspection reports. Every step depends on the accuracy and integrity of the imported CAD data.
InnovMetric faced a clear challenge: customers needed CAD models to be translated quickly and accurately from native CAD systems into PolyWorks|Inspector, preserving complex geometry, product structure, and PMI data across a wide range of formats, while keeping pace with continuous changes in CAD platforms. Twenty years ago, customers using Dassault Systèmes’ CATIA V5 began demanding native file import rather than neutral formats such as IGES or STEP. Accuracy was non-negotiable and InnovMetric needed a proven, reliable toolkit to meet that demand.
More recently, as InnovMetric’s software architecture evolved, the team needed a modern, object-oriented API that would offer greater flexibility, performance, and alignment with their development roadmap.
Key Insights
Over 20 years of partnership with Spatial, InnovMetric’s integration of 3D InterOp has become foundational to PolyWorks|Inspector’s position as a universal metrology platform, supporting 26,000 customers across 100 countries. Native CAD import is no longer a differentiator. It is a baseline expectation across the metrology market. By maintaining and continuously improving this capability, InnovMetric ensures it meets customer expectations and retains its competitive position among the world’s leading metrology software vendors.
The migration to UConnect delivered concrete results: 100% 3D ACIS modeler reusability, saving several months of development effort, and an immediate average performance gain of 10% on parallel part imports. It also opened new capabilities that InnovMetric is actively exploring to support their digital thread strategy. A first example: in 2026, InnovMetric released a new capability allowing customers to update complex inspection projects with a new revision of a large assembly, powered by the reliability and performance of the UConnect SDK.
-1.png)
