Pre-Process

Parts to be inspected are placed on a set-up frame within a standard mold. Encase-it potting material covers and fills the part. Once the mold is filled, a potting station ensures that encase-it fills all the internal and external features of the part.

Mounting

The potted part is mounted on an aluminum base and secured to the mill table. The system operator selects the mold dimensions and part material.

Milling

The system uses a precise fly cutter to accurately machine away ultra-thin layers of the part. Hardened Encase-it material reinforces the part and provides high contrast between the part and the mold material, defining the edge contours of each layer.

Scanning

After each layer is machined away, the CGI system uses a digital camera to capture the newly exposed surface of the part. This scanned data is sent to the first of two software stages. The processing software automatically files each layer of data to the hard drive to ensure no information is lost.

Post-Processing

The 3-D bitmap is input into the post-processing stage, creating points at the intersections of Encase-it and the part on each scanned Z-axis plane. Noise is filtered out, and the file is output at user-definable sample rates. Files can be output in various formats, such as IGES, ASCII or Binary Points.