There are major technology disruptions afoot in the world of conventional portable metrology. For the better part a decade, 6DoF laser tracking has been the standard go-to technology for metrologists in the large-scale manufacturing sectors. As OEMs and mid-level suppliers shift their sights toward the Factory of the Future, the need for manufacturing intelligence and automation tools has intensified. A new breakthrough called 7DoF—7 degrees of freedom—has cracked the code on what is deemed to be the next frontier in laser tracking.
In technology development, foundational details truly matter. The plan to create a 6 degrees of freedom (6DoF) laser tracking technology was set in motion in the late ‘90s. The project was initiated by a customer request for a handheld scanner that could scan an object the size of a car or larger with an accuracy level far better than photogrammetric systems could provide at the time. The development of all of our 6DoF systems came from the requirements to build the first handheld scanner designed to work in tandem with laser tracking systems. I will explain the significance later.