Author(s)

J.M. Freeman, A. Longstaff & D.G. Ford

Abstract

Artefacts such as granite blocks and grids of spheres have been used to calibrate conventional co-ordinate measuring machines. They have the advantage that the machine is being used in its normal mode of operation during calibration. However, their use provides limited information for the calibration of Cartesian machines. Machine checking gauges and ball bars are useful in assessing errors in machines, but do not normally provide a means of calibration. This is because the errors are distributed throughout the slide-ways and cannot be related to a finite number of parameters in the machine. The present paper investigates the use of machine checking gauges and ball bars to calibrate non-Cartesian machines. In such machines a f

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