In industries like rail vehicle construction, energy, and process engineering, the manual positioning of weld-on parts is a time-consuming and error-prone task. Complex geometries and weld-induced distortions make it difficult to align components precisely and according to allowed manufacturing tolerances. Traditional methods comprise time-consuming manual, and error-prone measurements on the base body, or the use of costly positioning templates if batch size allows. This is complemented by QA inspections conducted by metrology team, often resulting in subsequent rounds of manual rework -– all of which slow down production and increase costs.
Key Benefits
Key Benefits
Use Cases
Use Cases
Steel Construction & Welding
Position brackets, flanges, and other attachments on large, complex-shaped components. Replace physical welding templates with digital projections.
Plant Engineering
Align add-on parts in complex assemblies. Ensure compatibility with downstream systems.
Toolmaking & Automotive
Visualize rework areas on press tools during run-in.
How does it work?
How does it work?
Projections can be created conveniently and with a few mouse-clicks based on various supported CAD or CSV formats. Simply point IPG Mobile to the target area on your part and project simple crosshairs to mark bolt positions or show spline contours on curved surfaces for trimming complex parts with ease. No matter if data shall be visualized on-the-fly in manufacturing of prototypes or small batches, or in advance for planning of series production – benefit from simple propagation of design changes to the shop floor.
The high-precision stereo camera system built into IPG Mobile allows for flexible dynamic referencing to align the virtual laser template with your part - with utmost accuracy and dynamics.
Referencing can be realized based either on targets or target-less, or a combination thereof, depending on the scenario.
- Position-, surface-, edge-, or corner-features can be flexibly configured by means of targets.
- This way, RPS-/3-2-1-referencing strategies and flexible tolerance management consistent with the assembly drawings can be realized.
- Target-less model-based referencing allows for zero set-up time whereas scan-based adaptive referencing is handy to achieve utmost accuracy on mostly curved objects with little dedicated features.
- Scan-based adaptive projection minimizes parallax errors on locally deformed parts
Watch how IPG Mobile has transformed our customer's operation
Seamless integration with tolerance management and 3rd-party measurement systems
Seamless integration with tolerance management and 3rd-party measurement systems
IPG Mobile is designed to integrate effortlessly into your existing measurement environment – regardless whether you rely on tactile or non-contact methods on your shopfloor. This flexibility makes it the ideal tool for measurement service providers and manufacturers who need to bridge the gap between digital planning and manual execution.
Simply import as-planned or as-built 3D data from CAD or import coordinates or weld-lines via the flexibly configurable CSV importer and bring precise measures including potential adaptions made in your favourite metrology software right onto the part.
Stay in the coordinate system you trust! Uncoded circular targets used by photogrammetry systems can be used right away for dynamic referencing. Alternatively, 1.5 inch target nests measured by tactile coordinate measurement systems or laser trackers can be equipped with 1.5 inch coded hemispherical targets. Either way, simply reuse the 3D reference coordinates from your metrology software for seamless referencing.
