3d modeling comparison of concept vs reality

    I'm working toward a long term goal of implementing robotics in my manufacturing. The first major hurdle I have come across is that I would need to have the equipment create a 3d model of its work, find discrepancies between reality and CAD, and, in an effort to mitigate the impacts of inherently imperfect materials, use those discrepancies to adjust the plans accordingly. My guess is this not an original thought, where might I find software or info about how to accomplish this?

    Well, a full simulation sim package is going to be very expensive, in both licenses and training. And it's still no substitute for hands-on experience.


    For a "starter", I would recommend the trial version of RoboDK. This will give you an idea of what you can/can't do in simulation.


    As HawkME said, a lot depends on just what kind of process you're trying to do. Most robotic applications are hand-taught, rather than running programs generated from simulation.

    This sounds more like a meteorology problem than a robotics one. At least the OPs step one does. There are a number of solutions, but it really depends on what your tolerances of your part are. Also depends if you want to do the inspection offline, or online.

    Check out the Fanuc position converter I wrote here! Now open source!

    Check out my example Fanuc Ethernet/IP Explicit Messaging program here!

    In the early 2000's I was approached by a large company for just this. The task was repair of turbine blades. The problem:

    • blades are very expensive so repair is preferable to new
    • blades undergo high-temperature loading during service. Blades demonstrate creep after being in service, and the distorted shape does not agree with the CAD model.
    • blade leading edges and tips erode during service. This produces random "scallops" and reduces surfaces that must be rebuilt by welding new material, then manually finishing (machining & grinding) to an aerodynamic profile.
    • The skilled crafts employees used to do this repair task were all approaching retirement age.

    My client wanted a magical software package capable of developing a repair strategy for a blade and create robot welding paths based on the repair requirement. I researched vision systems, scanning, CMM measurements, point clouds, and so on. I did not find any useful solution. As far as I knew at the time, the technological level of software was not sufficient to perform this adaptive/generative CAD task.


    Almost 20 years later, the technology level is probably suitable for this. Massive amounts of programming would probably be required. My guess is that it still does not exist on the market. Therefore it is still probably less costly to simply hire & train a new generation of craftspeople.

    Well, a robot-carried surface-measuring instrument combined with a laser tracker (Hexagon T-Scan comes to mind), combined with Spatial Analyzer, can probably carry out the 3d-mapping part of the exercise.


    However, generating paths from that data... I'm not sure there's a general-case, off-the-shelf solution.

Advertising from our partners