Zeiss Adds Extreme Metrology

Expanding its reach in the field of measurement technology, Carl Zeiss IMT Corp. is planning to roll some of its existing products into a new extreme metrology group.

The new group will offer manufacturers solutions for products that are “different from the run-of-the-mill stuff,” said Kevin Legacy, the company’s manager of computed tomography and engineering.

Manufacturers will be able to send their products, components and prototypes to a new lab in Brighton, Mich., where Zeiss IMT experts will provide metrology services. Thus, companies who might not be able to afford to purchase Zeiss instruments outright still will be able to benefit from their accuracy and precision.

The Metrotom CT system. (Photos: Carl Zeiss IMT)

Several of the instruments are on display this week at MD&M East, a medical device manufacturing trade show at the Jacob K. Javits Center in New York City.

The Metrotom CT system uses a cone beam x-ray to “slice up” 3-D objects nondestructively, Legacy said. The instrument, which costs about $100,000, has a cylindrical optimum measuring range of 300 mm (diameter) by 350 mm (height) and enables industrial users to perform assembly and materials checks as well as analysis of damage, defects and porosity. He said that a museum could use the Metrotom to scan birds, bones, rocks and other artifacts, and that the machine even could “digitize” a museum collection for mankind.

A scan from the Metrotom system.

Other systems featured this week at MD&M include the O-Inspect multisensor measuring machine and the company’s Duramax entry-level touch-probe measuring system. Absent from the trade show is the F25 microcoordinate measuring machine.

Carl Zeiss IMT in Maple Grove, Minn., is the North American headquarters of Carl Zeiss IMT GmbH of Oberkochen, Germany. The company is a world leader in CNC coordinate-measuring machines and solutions for multidimensional metrology in the lab and on the production floor.

Laura S. Marshall
laura.marshall@laurin.com