Coordinate measuring instrument and method of generating pattern data concerning shape of work to be measured

A method of generating data representing a three-dimensional shape pattern from design data for a work to be measured by a coordinate measuring instrument which has measuring procedure instruction means for generating instructions specifying a measuring procedure based on said data representing said shape pattern, said method comprising the steps of:

• generating and storing data representing a plurality of simple geometric patterns which each have a size parameter;
• generating data representing respective measurement shape patterns by retrieving respective said simple geometric shape patterns corresponding to respective portions of said design data and by giving to each said size parameter of said retrieved patterns a definite value which is derived from said design data;
• and
• combining said data representing said measurement shape patterns to build said three-dimensional shape pattern representing the shape of said work to be measured.

In a system which includes:

• controller means for effecting three-dimensional movement of a probe sensor along a path of travel relative to a work manufactured from design data, wherein said probe sensor moves successively through a plurality of respective sensing positions as it moves along said path of travel and senses in each said sensing position positional information for a respective one of a plurality of points on an external surface of said work;
• the improvement comprising:
• measurement instruction means for computing from said design data work image data representing a three-dimensional image of said work, for computing path data from said work image data and from probe image data representing a three-dimensional image of said probe sensor, said path data representing a three-dimensional path of movement of said image of said probe sensor relative to said image of said work which moves said image of said probe sensor successively to a plurality of predetermined sensing positions relative to said image of said work and which avoids engagement of said image of said probe sensor and said image of said work as said image of said probe sensor is moved between each successive pair of said sensing positions along said path of movement, and for transmitting to said controller means said calculated path data, said path data defining for said controller means said path of travel, said controller means effecting said movement of said probe sensor along said path of travel in response to said path data.