Capture 3D Metrology Solutions Quarterly Newsletter - July 2009

1. Making the Improvement
2. Client Spotlight: Boeing Everett Team Finds a Cost Savings Solution to Ongoing 777 Interior Challenge
3. Featured Client Testimonial: Visiocorp
4. SPECIALS: Stimulus Packages now AVAILABLE for EVERYONE!
5. Visit Capture 3D on YouTube
6. FREE Plastics and Injection Molding Quality Applications Webinar – August 12, 2009
7. Review: GOM Germany Optical Metrology Conference With Over 400 Attendees
8. Capture 3D Michigan Facility Expansion for Manufacturing Automated Scan + Inspection Systems
9. System Enhancements: ATOS Touch Probe Inspection Add-on Kit and new TRITOP telescoping camera mount
10. Software Highlight: GD&T Functionality
11. Discounted Basic Training Courses
12. Upcoming Events

Making the Improvement
Catherine Kim, Marketing Coordinator, Capture 3D, Inc.

Making sound decisions that will save your company hundreds of thousands of dollars is important. Minimizing waste, reducing iterations, and improving your time to market are crucial attributes in helping you succeed. When spending your valuable and limited capital expense dollars, it’s important to get the best “bang for your buck.” While this sounds logical, it is disheartening to see so many companies purchasing metrology solutions based on specification sheet accuracies and demos on parts not relevant to their industry. Even though it will take some of your organization’s time, efforts, and costs, make sure to benchmark your application on your parts, in your working environment and include some known accuracy artifacts in your tests to ensure “real world” results that are pertinent to your business. Also keep in mind that a better solution may require changes to your current processes and workflow. It takes little time to learn and implement a new methodology, but the payoff can be quite grand with the right solution.

Metrology technology has come a long way from the traditional and tedious CMM methods to more robust and faster techniques with non-contact 3D scanners. By improving your company’s time to market, you will have a positive impact on your company’s success with a domino affect on you and your employee’s lives. In the end, it is our careers that support our families. This is a great time to evaluate your current quality control/inspection, reverse engineering, and metrology processes to see what improvements can be made. Whether you are a current Capture 3D client looking to make sure you are utilizing your system to it‘s maximum potential, or a new visitor looking to make improvements, contact us today for a no-cost real time demonstration in your working environment.

For over a decade, Capture 3D has continued to aide companies’ profitability through process improvement solutions from the design stage all the way through manufacturing by implementing GOM ATOS and TRITOP 3D metrology systems. Capture 3D’s turnkey accurate and fast 3D scanning and inspection solutions come in various configurations to suit your working needs. Team up with our industry specialists and together we can help you reach your goals and make dramatic improvements.

Industry specific packages are now available. Click on the icon below and send your request to me. If your industry is not listed, please do not hesitate to ask me. Let’s work together and start making improvements.

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Client Spotlight: Boeing Everett Team Finds a Cost Savings Solution to Ongoing 777 Interior Challenge

Congratulations to the Boeing Everett team for their efforts and success in finding a cost savings solution. Read more about Boeing and their continuing mission to improve their quality by going lean. The article can be found at:

http://www.boeing.com/news/frontiers/archive/2009/march/cover.pdf

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Featured Client Testimonial: Visiocorp

Visiocorp Group supplies exterior mirrors, interior mirrors and blind spot detection systems for all passenger vehicle segments and nearly every carmaker in North America, Europe, Asia and Australia.

"In 2007 we purchased the Capture 3D ATOS I SO system, and since then it has virtually paid for itself and improved several aspects of our business. Due to the ease of use, we have trained many employees to utilize the equipment. Therefore, we have eliminated our previous CMM scheduling and employee specialization requirements for root cause analysis and dimensional inspection. As a result, the time to obtain data reduced from 4 to 6 weeks to less than 2 to 3 days.

It has also helped us reduce our time to PPAP (Production Part Approval Process) approval for many of our components. Prior to implementing the ATOS system into our business, there was a lot of time wasted in identifying tooling discrepancies and validating the corrections prior to PPAP. With the ATOS system, however, we are able to quickly highlight problems in our tools and correct them accordingly. In fact, the number in times we needed to measure a given part prior to PPAP decreased from 4 times to 2 times because of the speed and accuracy with which we are able to analyze and fix our tools.

Another area in which the ATOS system has benefitted our business is in the improvement of our designs and processes. We not only use it to dimensionally validate our parts, but we have also used it to validate our Mold Flow predictions. The system has allowed us the ability to more accurately highlight differences between our predictions and our actual parts. As a result, our predictions have grown more accurate, allowing us to better execute any future products.

Finally, any time there have been questions or concerns with our ATOS system, Capture 3D's support network has been able to help. Whether we needed clarification on how to perform a certain function or help with a software issue, their support was able to provide solutions.

All in all, I would recommend the ATOS system to any business looking to improve the time it takes to verify their parts and their designs."

APQP Quality Engineer, Visiocorp

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STIMULUS PACKAGES for EVERYONE!

System Upgrades - Additional 2009 incentives offered for current Capture 3D customers to upgrade their system(s). In an effort to help our customers further maximize their ATOS and TRITOP investments, Capture 3D is offering additional trade-in credits, as much as 20%, to the already aggressive trade-in credits we offer to customers upgrading their ATOS and/or TRITOP systems. Potential upgrade paths include: higher resolution configurations, faster scan times, brighter light source for shop floor applications, faster computer configurations for data processing, and touch probe add-on support.

Off Maintenance? - For a limited time Capture 3D will be waiving the fee for customers who have been off maintenance.

2009 Rental / Lease Incentive Program - No long term commitment and rental payments applied towards system purchase! Capture 3D is offering a limited number of ATOS systems available for short term rental or lease. Available options can also include a skilled ATOS operator to maximize the effectiveness of the short term rental/lease. To review and discuss the various options for your working environment, please contact us.

Certain rules and restrictions apply with each stimulus package, please contact catherine@capture3d.com to take advantage of these great incentives. Back to top

Visit Capture 3D on YouTube

Check out our latest video featuring our multi-axis motion control ATOS scan + inspection systems.

http://www.youtube.com/Capture3Dscanning

FREE Plastics and Injection Molding Quality
Applications Webinar – Wednesday, August 12, 2009

Capture 3D will be covering various 3D measurement applications for the Plastics and Injection Mold industries. Learn how to streamline your tool/mold design process, reduce iterations, speed up your inspection with accurate results, measure warpage, improve your tool/mold repairs, analyze trends, and more... See how you can obtain fast and accurate results to make decisions quicker, reduce costs, and improve your time to market. Learn about the successes Chicago Mold, Fisher Price, Lego, Mann+Hummel, Motorola, and Visiocorp have experienced with Capture 3D’s metrology solutions. There’s so much to learn from this webinar so don’t miss out!

Reservations are limited. Please email catherine@capture3d.com to register!

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Review: GOM Germany Optical Metrology Conference With Over 400 Attendees

Optical Metrology 2009- the international GOM Conference took place May 25th - 28th at the GOM headquarters in Braunschweig, Germany.

Optical Metrology 2009 is an international conference for integration of optical measuring techniques in industry and research. The conference is a unique event in bringing industry leaders together and offers a platform for managers, metrologists, technology and research experts to exchange application experiences.

The presentations and discussions concentrated on reducing product development times, enhancing process security and optimizing production procedures using optical 3D measurement.

As GOM’s North American partner we would like to thank them for a successful and enlightening event.

• ABB, Czech - Using the ATOS 3D scanner for production quality inspection and reverse
engineering
• Airbus, France - Airbus A380 corner fitting inspection after milling
• Audi, Germany - Measuring sheet metal parts with robot measuring cells
• Capture 3D, USA - ATOS and TRITOP use in the industrial gas turbine and propulsion industry
• Ford, Germany - Strategic use of optical metrology for tooling and sheet metal applications at Ford Europe
• Gebrüder Gienanth Eisenberg, Germany - Automation for the determination of process capability
• GOM, Germany - Automated metrology and Automated first article inspection
• GOM, Germany - FEA comparison tool in ARAMIS and ARGUS
• GOM, Germany - Process safety: Integrating optical metrology and inspection software in industrial workflows
• GOM, Germany - The XXL scale in industrial photogrammetry
• Hörmann Automotive Components, Germany - Application of optical metrology in the tool shop
• Materialise, Belgium - Four application fields with ATOS and TRITOP
• MGG, Netherlands - Dimensional control of the entire casting process
• Skoda Auto, Czech Republic - Optical measuring techniques in automotive sheet metal research and production
• Volkswagen Poznan, Poland - Inspection of Automotive closures with ATOS &TRITOP using the principle of Virtual Master Buck
• Volkswagen - Auto5000, Germany - Automatic series-accompanying quality control of door assemblies

Please email catherine@capture3d.com if you would like a copy of the available presentations.

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Capture 3D Michigan Facility Expansion for Manufacturing Automated Scan + Inspection Systems Completed

Costa Mesa, California- Capture 3D, the North American partner for GOM mbH optical metrology systems, has completed the expansion of their Novi, Michigan facility to support their growing R&D and sales. To support the growing trend of automation, the Michigan facility will be the central location for manufacturing automated 3D scanning and inspection systems (robotic and motion control). Back to top

System Enhancements:

ATOS Touch Probe Inspection Add-on Kit
Enhance your inspection even further with the GOM ATOS Touch Probe Inspection Add-on Kit. Measure and inspect difficult areas, holes, and hidden cavities with fully customizable touch probes. This versatile kit offers 5 standard sizes to measure small to large objects. There is no additional hardware necessary and this single system solution enables quick 3D scans, easy interchange between surface and single point measurement, and analysis with full color plot models. The adapters provide further possibilities for advanced online measurements.

New TRITOP Hand-Held CMM Telescoping Camera Mount Extension
With GOM’s new telescoping camera mount extension, taking those hard to reach images are easy. A special swivel plate provides secure mounting and quick release. Aim the camera with the built-in laser pointer and use the remote trigger to take the pictures. The 6.5 feet (2 meter) bar extends out to 13 feet (4 meters) allowing you to reach above and over the largest objects. Experience the many advantages and save time and effort. Back to top

Software Highlight: GD&T Functionality

Verify and assure form, accuracy of fit and function through Geometric Dimensioning and Tolerancing (GD&T) features in the ATOS software. Fast selection of data, visualization of tolerances, and easy to interpret results. Contact us with any questions.

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Capture 3D Discounted Basic Training Courses

Increase your productivity, effectivity, and train additional personnel on your ATOS and/or TRITOP systems. For a limited time, Capture 3D is offering discounted basic training courses at each of our facilities - California, Washington, Texas, and Michigan. In order to maximize your learning experience, classes will be limited in size. If you are interested, please contact catherine@capture3d.com for scheduling. Back to top

Upcoming Events

• CMSC, Louisville, KY, July 20-24th, Booths 701 and 702
• 38th Turbomachinery Symposium , Houston, TX, September 14-17th, Booth 1533
• Quality Expo, Rosemont, IL, September 22-24th, Booth 332

Planing on attending one of these events? Contact catherine@capture3d.com to schedule a meeting onsite, or if you would like to bring us one of your parts please let us know. Back to top