Interest is growing across many industries in the use of X-ray computed tomography (CT) for dimensional metrology in the pursuit of improved quality control. Currently, however, there exists a lack of agreement among governing bodies in metrology, research institutions, technology providers, and other organizations over standards dealing with verifying CT systems’ dimensional metrology performance and developing task-specific measurement uncertainty budgets.
To improve things, first we must define and better understand our terms and work toward creating useful and needed standards. For example, how would you define accuracy? How does it differ from precision? In an interesting TEDEd talk (http://ed.ted.com/lessons/what-s-the-difference-between-accuracy-and-precision-matt-anticole), educator Matt Anicole says the distinction between these two terms is critical for many scientific endeavors, which certainly includes metrology and improved quality control.