Inspection is a critical element of any product development. In addition to dimensional inspection, evaluating products increasingly involves the inspection of free-form surfaces that are not relevant to the function.
Examples of such requirements include plastic parts, such as cell phone cases, housings for electrical plugs, or automotive parts. With current technology, geometries with tight tolerances are measured with coordinate measuring machines. Complete acquisition of some components requires the use of many rotary and tilt positions. Programming of such measurements requires experience and a good amount of time. Some sensors also require that the component be pretreated, such as being sprayed with white paint to obtain sufficient contrast for optical measurement.