Geometric Error Parameterization of a CMM via Calibrated Hole Plate Archived Utilizing DCC Formatting
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report (Previous Reviewer 1)
The authors inspect a hole plate using a coordinate measuring machine and form a digital calibration certificate (DCC). DCC is an important topic to study for the future of manufacturing. The paper is presented well, however, including answers to the following questions can improve the paper further:
Explain how the measurements were done using traditional measurement standards. Was any ISO/ ASTM standard followed (Page 7)
Time taken for inspection is a critical component. How much time was tasked during calibration and measurements using the described process? Compare this time with time spent with the traditional measurement process.
DCC is an emerging field. Discuss the limitations of the current process and areas for future improvements.
Is the process described limited to circular holes? Can CMM inspect complex geometries? If so, how can the process or results presented in the current paper extend to more complex geometries (For example ellipses or splines)
Author Response
Point 1: Explain how the measurements were done using traditional measurement standards. Was any ISO/ ASTM standard followed? (Page 7)
Author’s Response:
Thank you very much. The measurement procedure is followed by ISO 10360-2. We have added the sentence to line 304 in the revised manuscript.
Point 2: Time taken for inspection is a critical component. How much time was tasked during calibration and measurements using the described process? Compare this time with time spent with the traditional measurement process.
Author’s Response: Thank you for your feedback. The measurements of the hole plate require a total of 2.5 hours, which is a reasonable amount of time considering the complexity of the measurement task. However, when compared to traditional measurement methods such as the laser interferometer, autocollimator, and angle square. The laser interferometer takes 50 minutes, the autocollimator takes 50 minutes, and the angle square takes 20 minutes. Therefore, the traditional measurement methods require a total of 2 hours to complete. We have added the sentence for line 299 to line 303 in the revised manuscript.
Point 3: DCC is an emerging field. Discuss the limitations of the current process and areas for future improvements.
Is the process described limited to circular holes? Can CMM inspect complex geometries? If so, how can the process or results presented in the current paper extend to more complex geometries (For example ellipses or splines)
Author’s Response: No, the process described is not limited to circular holes. CMM can inspect complex geometries. CMM can be programmed to measure various shapes, including ellipses, splines, and other complex geometries. The process described in this paper can be extended to more complex geometries by modifying the measurement program and creating appropriate measurement strategies. For example, when measuring an ellipse, the measurement program can be adjusted to take into account the different radii of the ellipse and to ensure that the probe tip is always in contact with the surface being measured.
Reviewer 2 Report (Previous Reviewer 2)
I think standard formatted digital information reports will gain use in industry so the work here is of benefit to society.
Technical issues.
No mention is given of disabling the CMM's calibration table before measurement. This nullifies the HTM model described as the model assumes no corrections which makes the errors volumetric rather than axis confined (to 6 dof).
The hole plate was positioned at the center of the work zone and the model for squareness developed from the center being the functional "zero" point for all errors. The comparison squareness artifact was not placed in this position for measurement and actually would require four rotated measurements to match the model for comparison.
As you mention in line 160-164, there is a requirement for estimating and showing the uncertainty at each step of the calibration chain. Your DCC report does not include this information which involves the uncertainty of the artifact as well as the uncertainty introduced by the HTM model and the repeatability (and estimations) of the CMM and also the uncertainties due to the varying environment and correction equations. The laser also has uncertainties due to the environment temperature, humidity and pressure. Even if the laser had an environmental detector there is an associated uncertainty. This will likely require another section to describe the calculations.
The full XML code should be shown in the paper as this is the main topic.
In the conclusion the term "good agreement" is used. This is a qualitative statement which should be turned into a quantitative statement(s) or qualified after the uncertainties have been calculated to be within the measurement uncertainties of each technique.
Grammatical issues:
"...the DCC can be delivered to clients who meet the ISO 17025 standard". The DCC can be delivered to anyone who has a need of the certificate.
"immediately delivered" should be electronically delivered or directly accessed" or some such wording.
The first paragraph of 2.1 is a repeat. Think about whether this is needed in both places.
In Figure 2 I think measuringEquipments should be measuringEquipment as the singular is also the plural form
On line 248 measure along the x and y directions could be better stated as orthogonal direction or planar measurements as the plate is rotated and x and y is changing in the CMM coordinate frame.
Line 270 is unclear about alignment and what path point means. As the geometric errors are slowly varying the artifact does not have to be positioned exactly but rotation accommodated for.
The English is generally very readable with the exceptions mentioned in the comments.
Author Response
Please refer to Author's Reply to the Review Report (Reviewer 2).
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Reviewer 3 Report (Previous Reviewer 3)
The revised manuscritp is suitable to be published.
Author Response
I would like to express my sincerest gratitude for your time, effort, and valuable feedback in reviewing my manuscript. Your constructive criticism and insightful comments were immensely helpful in refining the content and improving the quality of the paper.
Round 2
Reviewer 2 Report (Previous Reviewer 2)
1. In response to my previous point 1 shown below, there was no response as to whether the compensation was turned off before measurement. If it was not disabled, the modeling is that of the residual errors after compensation and not the geometric mechanical/scale errors of the machine. Was the compensation disabled?
Point 1: No mention is given of disabling the CMM's calibration table before measurement. This nullifies the HTM model described as the model assumes no corrections which makes the errors volumetric rather than axis confined (to 6 dof). The hole plate was positioned at the center of the work zone and the model for squareness developed from the center being the functional "zero" point for all errors. The comparison squareness artifact was not placed in this position for measurement and actually would require four rotated measurements to match the model for comparison.
2. The second major issue is that you are limiting the reporting of uncertainty to the uncertainty of the measurement of the hole plate. The DCC reported measurands are the (residual?) parametric errors of the CMM. What are the uncertainties of those measurands? How are they traceable through the (mathematical via equations) analysis? Can those parametric errors be used to facilitate a accuracy estimation of the machine as in the ISO 10360?
There are a very few minor places where the prose could be improved but generally acceptable.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Round 3
Reviewer 2 Report (Previous Reviewer 2)
Based on the statements in the introduction:
"Currently, users 102 must manually input detected errors into compensation tables on various controllers, 103 which can lead to accidents such as a knife or machine tool collisions caused by abnormal 104 compensation values. However, XML files can facilitate the development and implemen- 105 tation of geometric error compensation for machine tool controllers, resulting in enhanced 106 measurement precision for both five-axis and three-axis machines" , it is necesary to inform the readership that the report contains values for the residual errors of the CMM and not the current parameters in the compensation tables.
Optional: place the uncertainty with each error in the DCC.
May have some very minimal prose issues.
Author Response
Thank you for your feedback. We have made revisions to the content and added the following statement to the revised manuscript, specifically between lines 102 and 112.
The statements in the introduction is as follows:
Currently, users are required to manually input detected errors into compensation tables on various controllers. This manual process can potentially result in accidents, such as collisions involving knives or machine tools, due to abnormal compensation operations or programming errors. However, the utilization of XML files can facilitate the development and implementation of geometric error compensation for machine tool controllers, thereby enhancing the measurement precision of both machine tools and CMMs. It is crucial to emphasize that the values present in the DCC do not indicate the current parameters in the compensation tables. Residual errors or geometric errors represent the disparities be-tween measured values and expected values, reflecting the remaining errors in the system after compensation.
This manuscript is a resubmission of an earlier submission. The following is a list of the peer review reports and author responses from that submission.
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The authors studied the accuracy of the coordinate measuring machine (CMM) in measuring a hole plate and compared the measurements with traditional measurement techniques.
The paper is well-presented and easy to read. Following are my recommendations to improve the paper further:
- Section three: give the reference for the CMM software, 4-point circle method.
- Show results comparing measurements from CMM and traditional measurements.
- What is the time taken to measure using CMM? Compare it with the traditional measuring process.
- Circular hole is a simplified geometry. Can you use an example to show how CMM measures error (Eg, if due to an error, the hole is no longer circular)?
- Can CMM be used to measure more complex geometries?
Reviewer 2 Report
Digital calibration certificates (DCC) will certainty play an increasingly important role in the future of manufacturing. The use of proper well-defined standards also play an important role in manufacturing and quality control. In this article an example of measurement procedures resulting in a documentation of the parametric geometric deviations of a coordinate measuring machine using a hole-plate to determine those errors. However, the standard referenced was the ISO 230-2 standard. This is not the accepted standard (ISO 10360-2, linked below) which should have been used. As a result the article is not acceptable for publication in its current embodiment. There are two paths for reconstituting the paper to make it acceptable. The first is to measure according to the methods in the ISO 10360-2 standard and build the DCC from those experiments and recording the information from those. I just looked at a manufacturer's certification of a CMM and saw that it was 19 pages long with graphs and data. The second way that the paper could be reimbodied is to use the current data and methods and present it as a DCC format way of recording the pertinent data necessary to correct, volumetrically, the errors of a CMM. But the modeling information regarding the functional point etc would need to be included. Perhaps the title could be Geometric CMM error parameterization of a CMM via calibrated hole plate archived utilizing DCC formatting.
Whichever path is chosen, the result would be informative for the technical community.
There was some development in the US along these lines many years ago with a standardization within ASME that has not yet been approved for dissemination. These were:
ASME B5.59.1M – Information Technology for Machine Tools, Part 1 – Data Specification for Machine Tool Performance Tests
ASME B5.59.2M – Information Technology for Machine Tools, Part 2 – Data Specification for Properties of Machine Tools for Milling and Turning.
Reference
ISO 10360-2:2009(en), Geometrical product specifications (GPS) — Acceptance and reverification tests for coordinate measuring machines (CMM) — Part 2: CMMs used for measuring linear dimensions
Reviewer 3 Report
This manuscript implemented the measurement results and administrative information obtained from the hole plate into the Digital Calibration Certificate, including how to calibrate the CMM using a hole plate, and explains the calibration process. The experiment results indicate a good agreement in the measurement accuracy of geometric errors between the hole plate method and traditional method. The proposed method is interesting.
The following needs more explanation.
1) On lines 270 to 273, when using standard plates for CMM correction, there is a lack of support from measurement data. Using HTM formulas to calculate 21 geometric errors results in too little description of the specific principles and processes of the experiment.
2) Does the manuscript directly use the XML format of PTB to present the CMM calibration certificate electronic report? If not, is there any improvement in the XML format in the paper?
3) On line 332, the unit of data -0.30 is lost.
