A Study on an Evaluation Method for Form Deviations of 2D Contours from Coordinate Measurement

A practical approach towards evaluating form deviations of 2D complex contour profiles from the coordinate measurement data of discrete points is proposed. In this approach, a 2D complex contour is represented approximately by the combination of straight line and circular arc segments under the condition of satisfying the prespecified interpolation accuracy. The form deviation of a measured point is calculated relative to the approximate contour and the form deviation of the whole contour is evaluated using either the minimum zone criterion (MZC) or the least squares criterion (LSC). It has been demonstrated that the difference between the deviation definitions, one relative to the original contour and the other to the approximate contour, is not larger than the prespecified accuracy value, i.e. the evaluation precision of the form deviation can be sufficiently guaranteed. The effectiveness and the efficiency of the approach are verified with a practical example of a planar cam contour. Moreover, a weighted LSC technique is proposed in order to obtain a rational evaluation result for the measured points with non-uniform length interval.