The first choice in portable measurement software

Whats new in

Welcome to
CAM2 Measure 10.4 is FAROs all-in-one metrology software, the first choice measurement
software for portable 3D Measurement systems.
In this version, CAM2 Measure has taken yet another big step forward in providing capable
software to be used with FAROs scanning devices such as the FaroArm and the Faro Amp.
This document brings you a detailed description of each of the new capabilities of this new
version, enabling you to quickly learn about its new features and get you started on learning
how to use them.
In addition to the Scanning capabilities, tactile measurement users will also find some good
capabilities in this version. The new CAD handling features will allow you to better organize
your CAD data in ways to simplify the measurement process when you have large CAD parts.
And, in response to the continuous need for automation of the measurement process, we
continued to improve on the QuickTools capabilities in order to simplify manual processes that
can be handled within CAM2 Measure.
The document closes with 3 exercises that you can follow to help you learn how to use all the
new features included in CAM2 Measure 10.4.

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Table of Contents
1
1.1

FEATURE EXTRACTION IMPROVEMENTS

Remove "Any Feature" option

1
1

1.2
Support multi-selection
1.2.1
Feature Extraction Workflow change
1.2.2
Support for multi-selection in Feature Extraction

1
1
1

1.3
Selection of a Projection Plane for Extracted 2D features
1.3.1
Presetting the Projection plane for Extracted features
1.3.2
Editing the Projection Plane in the Feature Properties

2
2
2

1.4
Allow for additional extraction options
1.4.1
Standard projection
1.4.2
Thin Material

2
3
4

1.5

Manual probing from Point Cloud to construct best-fit geometry

1.6

Reselection of points for Extracted Feature

1.7

Convert Extract Line to use 2D line

1.8

Readings / Whiskers on extracted features

CROSS SECTION SCAN IMPROVEMENTS

2
2.1

New Tree organization

2.2

Support for multiple saved views per Cross Section

2.3

Exclude points from the Cross Section

2.4

Select an area of interest

CROSS SECTION DIMENSIONING IMPROVEMENTS

3.1
Extend capabilities on Dimension extraction
3.1.1
New Extraction workflow
3.1.2
Display Dimension in Feature Tree
3.1.3
Display Dimension in Report

6
6
6
6

3.2

Dimension editing

3.3

Support repositioning of dimensions on screen

4 IMPROVE POINT CLOUD PERFORMANCE FOR FASTER SCANNING AND LARGER

POINT CLOUDS
7
4.1

ii

Capture improvements

Whats new in
4.2

Memory optimizations

4.3

Heat Map display option

4.4

Update default preferences to favor performance

CAD MANAGEMENT IMPROVEMENTS

5.1

Support the ability to flip CAD Surfaces

5.2

Improve selection of CAD Surfaces for CAD projection

5.3

Allow the measurement of Surface points against Layers

5.4

Allow inspection on a selected set of surfaces

POINT CLOUD

6.1

Add fine/global registration

6.2

Point Cloud: Support front facing selection of points

10

6.3

Support splitting / segmentation of scans by surface

10

ALIGNMENTS

11

7.1

Animate the CAD view while solving Point Cloud alignments

11

7.2

Best-fit alignment improve accuracy

11

7.3

Improve speed of the Best-fit alignment when using Point Clouds

11

DEVICES

11

8.1

Recognize Edge LLP when it is connected while software is running.

11

8.2

Improve results from TrackArm when devices are connected wirelessly

11

8.3

The user should confirm when deleting features used to calculate a Device Position 12

LABELS: NEW SCREEN LABEL LAYOUT OPTIONS

12

9.1

Labels: New screen label layout options: Fixed Mode

12

9.2

Labels: New screen label layout options: Refine Label Position

12

10

QUICKTOOLS

12

10.1 Consolidate and extend export options for Export Measurement Data and View Report
steps 12
10.2

iii

The user can define a QuickTool step that only sets or computes a Device Position

12

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10.3

QuickTools: The user can import header information from a predefined txt file

11

OTHERS:

11.1

Document Header: Add automatic header field for Active Device name

13

13
13

11.2 Feature Visibility: The user can select one or more features and show only those via a
single command.
13
11.3

File: File Open should open at last folder used within session

13

11.4

Measurement: Allow exporting Deviation Markers to a file

14

11.5

Measurement: Make Material Compensation more intuitive

14

11.6 Reporting: Form of Point Cloud should not appear in report when it is unchecked in the
Feature Information Panel
14

12

EXERCISES FOR LEARNING CAM2 MEASURE 10.4 NEW FEATURES

12.1

Surface Inspection on CAD files with Inverted Surfaces

15

12.2

Scanning Part Inspection no CAD

16

12.3

Scanning Part Inspection With CAD

17

iv

15

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1 Feature Extraction Improvements

The most significant changes made in CAM2 Measure 10.4 come in the form of improvements
to the Feature Extraction capabilities. Feature Extraction has been extended to allow more
control over how the measured features are extracted from the selected points from a Point
Cloud.

1.1 Remove "Any Feature" option

The original version of the Feature Extraction included an Any Feature capability that would
guess what feature was contained within the Point Cloud selection. With the focus to make
the Extraction of features more robust and to improve the performance of this capability, this
command has been removed. The type of feature to be extracted must now be explicitly
chosen in the Ribbon.

1.2 Support multi-selection

In CAM2 Measure 10.3, it was only allowed to make one selection and then the type of feature
that was active would be created from the selection. In CAM2 Measure 10.4, it is now possible
to make multiple selections to use for the extraction of a single feature. In this section, we show
you how:

1.2.1

Feature Extraction Workflow change

The workflow of the Feature Extraction capabilities has now changed. In the previous version,
you would first select the type of feature that you wish to fit and would then select an area of
the Point Cloud that would be used to extract the feature. In 10.4, the workflow has changed
as follows:
1. Select the area of the Point Cloud containing the feature you want to extract
2. Choose the type of extraction you wish to perform. Options explained below
3. Press the type of feature you wish to extract from the Selection

1
Select the area of the Point
Cloud containing the feature
you want to extract

1.2.2

3
Press the type of feature you
wish to extract from the
Selection

2
Choose the Extraction Method
you want to use

Support for multi-selection in Feature Extraction

Multi-selection is now also supported in the Feature Extraction mode and uses the same
technique for Point Cloud Editing:

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Every selection operation starts a new selection. When complete, any existing selection
will be cleared and the new selected points will stay selected:
Selecting with the SHIFT key pressed will add to the current selection. When complete,
the resulting selection will include points from the existing selection and the new
selection. This mode can be noticed with a small + sign next to the selection cursor
Selecting with the CTRL key pressed will remove from the current selection. When
complete, the resulting selection will remove the points that were newly selected from
the existing selection. This mode can be noticed with a small - sign next to the
selection cursor

1.3 Selection of a Projection Plane for Extracted 2D features

In many cases, the user will want to extract one or more 2D Features that are on a given
projection plane. In the current version, this setting will only apply to Circle and Line, as yhose
are the only 2D features supported by Feature Extraction. Setting the projection plane for an
extracted feature can happen in 2 ways:

1.3.1

Presetting the Projection plane for Extracted features

The projection plane for Feature Extraction can be preset by using the Projection Plane
selection box that can be accessed from the Quick Access bar at the top of the CAD View.
Changing the settings in this box will control the choice of Projection Planes:
-

1.3.2

Auto: This is the default setting. When this option is selected, CAM2 Measure 10.4 will
look for the best existing projection plane for this new feature. If no good projection
plane exists, CAM2 Measure will extract the plane from the Point Cloud data.
None: When selected, a projection plane will be extracted from the data and the 2D
feature will then be extracted using this Projection Plane
Any other plane: If you choose a projection plane from the list, it will be used as the
projection plane for the feature you are extracting. This allows you to control very
specifically what projection plane should be used for the extraction.

Editing the Projection Plane in the Feature Properties

As with any measured 2D feature, you can edit the properties of the extracted feature and
modify the projection plane from there. The options provided in the previous section will apply
in this case as well.

1.4 Allow for additional extraction options

An additional set of options are now available for providing additional control over how
features are extracted from a Point Cloud. Given the difficulty in capturing data on 2D
features, it is important to provide as many tools as possible to the user to control exactly how
the feature should be calculated from the data.
There are two general methods to extract features from a Point Cloud selection:

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1.4.1

Standard projection

In this method, CAM2 Measure ignores all the points that are on the plane and takes all
remaining points to be on the feature (circle or 2D line) that we will extract. These remaining
points are projected to the projection plane and are used to calculate the feature. Note that
the projection plane can either be preset or can be extracted from the selection. Refer to
Section 1.3 for the Projection Plane options.
Two more options are provided to allow more control over how points are taken to calculate
the feature:
1.4.1.1 Depth sampling
The Depth sampling option controls how to take the points that will be projected to the plane
for fitting the feature. This option is particularly important to exclude data that is close to the
edge of the holes. The two parameters are:
-

Offset: This controls at what distance from the Projection Plane the points should be
taken for the calculation of the feature. All points that are less than this distance from
the projection plane will be excluded.
Thickness: This parameter controls how thick is the band that will be used to extract the
points for fitting the feature
Projection Plane
Depth

Material

Thickness

1.4.1.2 Planar Exclusion

The Planar Exclusion option controls how to take the points that will be used to calculate the
projection plane for the feature. The option is only available when <None> is selected for the
Projection Plane. The two parameters are:
-

Offset: This controls the distance from the perimeter of the measured feature that points
should be taken for the calculation of the projection lane. All points that are less than
this distance from the outline of the feature will be excluded.
Threshold: This parameter controls how thick is the band that will be used to extract the
points for fitting the projection Plane

In the case of a circle, the zone will represent a disc around the fitted feature that will used to
take points to calculate the projection plane. This option is important for features that have a
narrow flat area around them.

Threshold

Material

Offset

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1.4.2

Thin Material

The Thin Material is the second option for feature Extraction. It should be used when scanning
a thin sheet material where it is not possible to take data inside the material of the part. When
using this calculation, the data that is not on the plane is excluded from the calculation. The
software will calculate the largest circle that can fit inside the gap from the hole.

1.5 Manual probing from Point Cloud to construct best-fit geometry

The Manual Probing extraction mode has been added to support a last-resort capability to
get the desired feature from the Point Cloud. It is accessible from the Probing Mode button
from the Extract Ribbon.
When you enter this mode, you are now allowed to pick points from the Point Cloud. As points
are picked, the list of features that can be calculated from the selected points is displayed on
the left side of the CAD View. To create one of those features, press the corresponding
geometry and the feature is created.

The two buttons to the right of the Probing Mode will allow you to remove the last point or all
the picked points.

1.6 Reselection of points for Extracted Feature

You can now reselect the points that are used for calculating an extracted feature. To change
the selection, you simply Edit the properties of the
feature in question. When you open the feature
properties, the originally selected points are
highlighted in the CAD View. At this point you can
reselect points in the CAD View, even using the SHIFT
and CTRL buttons to add and remove from the
selection as you could when you created the feature.
Once you have changed the selection as you need,
press the Modify button to confirm the changes.

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1.7 Convert Extract Line to use 2D line

The Line extraction in CAM2 Measure 10.4 will now extract a 2D line rather than a 3D line. This
means that the extracted line is now a 2D feature and will obey all the projection plane rules
and extraction rules of a 2D feature.

1.8 Readings / Whiskers on extracted features

Whiskers and Readings are now active and can be displayed in
the CAD View for extracted features. The function behaves as it
would for a normal probed feature.

2 Cross Section Scan Improvements

Good cross section evaluations are important for scanning jobs. With CAM2 Measure 10.3 we
provided good tools for extracting Cross Sections from Point Clouds and with 10.4 we are
extending our capabilities, having special focus on the reporting aspects of the Cross Sections.

2.1 New Tree organization

The first change that can be observed once you enter the Cross Section Analysis mode is the
organization of the Tree on the left. Within the Cross Section Analysis mode, the tree will display
only information that is relevant to this Cross Section. The contents of the tree are organized
into:
-

CAD Parts: Shows the list of all CAD Parts where you can show/hide the bodies at the
CAD level
Dimensions: All extracted dimensions will appear within this folder
Saved Views: Saved views will appear in this folder

2.2 Support for multiple saved views per Cross Section

Cross Sections can span over large areas yet the relevant information when it comes to
reporting may be very focused on particular areas. It is therefore important to provide the
ability to generate multiple Cross Section views for the report.
The Saved Views button on the Cross Section Analysis mode ribbon will now save a new view
and add it to the Saved Views folder. The views can be recalled by selecting them in the tree
and can also be deleted if necessary. The views will then appear in the report in the order in
which they were created.

2.3 Exclude points from the Cross Section

A new command to exclude selected points from the Cross Section has been added to the
Cross Section Analysis mode. Select points using the normal selection tools and press the button
to exclude the points. The points will not be deleted but will be hidden from the view and will
not be used for any calculation. In order to bring back the excluded points, you can press the
newly added Reset button.

2.4 Select an area of interest

CAM2 Measure 10.4 provides a new tool to allow the selection of an area of interest for the
Cross Section. This command enables a Rectangular selection mouse operation where you
select a rectangle area on the screen and the cross section will be limited to that particular
rectangle. All measurements and CAD outside the rectangle area that was selected will be
removed. You can revert back to viewing the complete Cross Section by pressing the Reset
button.

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3 Cross Section dimensioning improvements

The dimensioning tools for Cross Sections have also been extended to support more customer
applications. These changes are primarily in the areas of reporting and visualization of the
dimensions in the CAD View.

3.1 Extend capabilities on Dimension extraction

3.1.1

New Extraction workflow

There has been a slight change in the workflow for extracting features from Cross Section which
now makes it also consistent with the Feature Extraction from Point Clouds. Whereas in CAM2
Measure 10.3 you would first select the type of dimension to extract and then you would
perform one or two selections to calculate that dimension, in version 10.4 you will first perform
the selection and then press the corresponding dimension button to extract the dimension
from the selected Cross Section points. Adding and removing points from an existing selection
is done via the SHIFT and CTRL buttons as is also the case in the Feature Extraction commands.

3.1.2

Display Dimension in Feature Tree

The extracted dimensions are now listed in the

Feature Tree under the Cross Sections folder when
you are in the Cross Section Analysis mode. In
addition to that, the dimensions will appear as
features under the Cross Section in the normal
Feature Tree when you are in the Features
workspace. This will then allow you to view them in
the Feature Information Panel and enter in Nominal
values and Tolerances for those dimensions.

3.1.3

Display Dimension in Report

The dimensions will also appear now appear in the Report. A new section has been added
below the statistics, listing the dimensions that were created and appropriate nominal and
tolerance values as specified.

3.2 Dimension editing

In cases where the data on the Cross Section has changed or the selection was not accurate,
the user is now able to Re-select the area of the cross section to be used for extracting the
dimensions. To enable this command in the Ribbon, select the dimension you wish to
recalculate in the Tree. Pressing the Select New Points button will enable the selection tool that
was originally used to select the points for the dimension. You can now select the desired points
for that dimension and press the Update Dimension button when you are complete.
Note, that you can also use the SHIFT and CTRL buttons to modify the selection as you wish.

3.3 Support repositioning of dimensions on screen

The visual representation of the dimensions in the Cross Section view is an important aspect of
analyzing a Cross Section. When you have an area of interest that has overlapping dimensions,
it is important to provide users with the ability to reposition where the dimension labels and
graphics are positioned in the view. In addition, the graphics of the dimensions have been
changed to more closely match the look you would see in a technical drawing.
Repositioning of a dimension starts with placing the cursor over the dimension. At this point, the
dimension will highlight. At this point, you can press and drag the mouse to reposition the
movable part of the dimension. The movable parts of the dimension are as follows:

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Height: This dimension can be repositioned by placing the cursor on the line
connecting the two portions of the dimension. The line will move in a direction
perpendicular to the line.
Angle: This dimension can be repositioned by placing the cursor on the curved line
joining the two angle lines. The curve can be extended or brought closer to the apex
of the angle, moving both the curve and the dimension value text
Radius: This dimension can be moved by clicking the text and dragging it towards or
away from the center of the radius arc. The line will extend to where the text will be
positioned.

4 Improve Point Cloud performance for faster scanning and larger

Point Clouds
As FARO continues to develop its Point Cloud capable hardware, it is essential to evolve the
Software to be able to handle more data at a faster rate. As Point Clouds will become larger
and data capture rates increase new challenges will arise as the additional data will have
impact in many areas of our software.

4.1 Capture improvements

The capture performance has been improved to allow the live capture of Point Clouds at a
rate of 600k points/second on a standard laptop per the CAM2 Specifications. This
improvement cannot be noticed with the current V5 LLP however you should be able to
observe that the laptop will perform much more fluidly while scanning with this version

4.2 Memory optimizations

The memory usage from CAM2 Measure and the size of the files saved to disk will be smaller
with the new version.

4.3 Heat Map display option

This new capability not only is a performance improvement but also provides a significant wow
factor and in some cases will improve the look of the end result view. You can now color the
CAD part with the deviation colors rather than display point data representing the color. This is
an application preference that can be found in the Display -> CAD View page under the Point
Cloud section. By selecting the CAD Coloring option, the CAD will be colored and the points
will no longer be displayed.
Note that the CAD Coloring
will only be applied when
the Point Clouds are being
compared to CAD. They will
be displayed as points
otherwise. The CAD Coloring
also supports a Color
Interpolation option. Using
this option will make the
color transitions smoother
between patches that have
different color.

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4.4 Update default preferences to favor performance

In the past, most graphics preferences were set by default to favor the visualization of the
contents of the CAD View. With a few slight changes it is possible to improve the performance
of CAM2 Measure without compromising the visualization of the contents very much. The
following preferences are not set by default in CAM2 Measure 10.4:
-

Point Size: The default is now set to 1. Smaller point size improves the performance and
as the point clouds become larger and more dense, it is helpful to have smaller points;
Point visual representation: The default is now Squares. The square representation
means that the point is represented as a square using an exact number of pixels (ex
1x1 or 2x2). The Circles option would draw each point as a small circle which may look
better at the cost of performance;
Anti-aliasing enabled: The default is now off: this option makes lines look smoother and
less pixelated. Graphically this makes them look very good however requires additional
performance from the graphics subsystem.

5 CAD Management improvements

5.1 Support the ability to flip CAD Surfaces
A new CAD Management workspace has been created and can be accessed by clicking
the CAD area. Within this new Workspace, there is a Fix Normals mode that you can enter by
selecting a given CAD file in the list and then pressing the Fix Normals button.
When you enter this mode, the CAD files will be colored according to their vector orientation
relative to the screen. Grey surfaces are pointing out from the screen and represent good
surfaces. Red surfaces are pointing away from the screen and indicate surfaces that may be
inverted relative to the CAD
Model. To flip the orientation of a
surface, click on it with the mouse.
The color of the surface will switch
from red to grey indicating it is now
correct. The surfaces that have
been flipped can be identified
with the flip icon that will appear
next to the Body listed in the tree
under the corresponding CAD file.
Note that in some situations some
surfaces with high degrees of
curvature may be pointing towards and away from the screen. You will need to determine
which of those surfaces is correct.
One last thing to note is that it is not allowed to invert only some surfaces of a given CAD body.
If you invert one surface of a body, all surfaces will be inverted. If this results in a situation where
part of a body is correct and another part is incorrect, this is the result of a bad CAD file that
needs to be corrected in a CAD system.

5.2 Improve selection of CAD Surfaces for CAD projection

One of the advantages of the CAD Normal correction is that we can now take advantage of
correct CAD normal vectors and avoid the projections to the incorrect surfaces. This was a
particular problem when performing Surface Point measurements with a Laser Tracker where
the beam was pointing away from the surface rather than towards the surface which resulted
in an incorrect compensation in Automatic compensation mode.

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The selection of CAD surfaces now takes into account that the Surface vector is correct and
therefore we will not allow projection to the back side of surfaces. This also provides a
significant improvement with the Point Cloud alignments since we no longer allow the
projection of points thought the material of the part. Overall, the result will be more consistent
and better performing projections to CAD.
Attention: It will be very important to correct the normal vectors on the CAD files. Not doing so
will result in incorrect compensation of Surface Points.

5.3 Allow the measurement of Surface points against Layers

The layers support would allow users to organize groups of surfaces into layers but provided
very little advantages to users that would like to perform measurements against a subset of
their CAD data. In many instances, customers are provided complex CAD models but are only
required to measure against a small portion of those CAD models. Providing the ability to move
unwanted CAD into a Layer and exclude it from measurement is a significant advantage to
such users.
The Surface Inspection commands (Inspect Surface Point, Inspect Surface, Point Cloud, and
Cross Section Scan) now all allow the user to select specific Layers onto which the
measurements will be projected. This means that the unwanted portion of the CAD will not
play a role in the measurement process, lessening the burden on the users that get CAD files
that are more complex than they need.

5.4 Allow inspection on a selected set of surfaces

In line with the previous improvement, you will also be allowed to specify the given surfaces
you can inspect onto.

6 Point Cloud
This section contains a set of new capabilities that improve on general aspects of Point Cloud
management.

6.1 Add fine/global registration

The registration of Point Clouds was added in version 10.3. In that version, the application would
allow you to register a single cloud to one or a registered group of scans. The end result
provided a very good combined Point Cloud however it did not allow you to take the final
point cloud and fine tune the registration where all point clouds would be registered
individually to every other scan. This concept is called Fine Registration and the capability has
been added to CAM2 Measure version 10.4.
The Fine Registration capabilities are accessible within the Registration Mode in the Point Cloud
Workspace. Once two or more Point Clouds are registered, you can now select the
Registration Group and the Fine Registration button has been enabled. Pressing the button will
now start the Fine Registration calculation.

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Note: This can be a very lengthy operation, especially as the number of the Point Clouds
increases.

6.2 Point Cloud: Support front facing selection of points

All Selection modes now offer a button to support selection of Front-facing points only. This
button can be found in the Selection Tools group.
When turned on, the selection
tools will only pick up points that have normal vectors that are facing the screen. All points
facing away from the screen will be excluded.
Note: this is not a good selection tool to use for extracting 2D features like circles when using
the Standard Projection method. This will exclude points inside the feature.

6.3 Support splitting / segmentation of scans by surface

This new command will allow you to organize your Point Clouds by splitting them by their
nominal Surfaces. This subdivision enables you to create Profile callouts on individual surfaces,
by splitting the Point Clouds from a single surface into a separate Point Cloud which can then
have its own Profile Callout.
The Split Point Clouds command to can be found in the Construct menu. Pressing the button
will show options to split by Surface or by Layers. The respective options will be available
depending on the particular selection that is active at this time. If you have one or more
surfaces selected, then the By Surface option will be available. You can also split the Point
Cloud according to a CAD Layer, if you have one created. In this case, the resulting Point
Cloud will include the points from all Point Clouds that were projected to the selected CAD
surfaces / Layer.

10

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7 Alignments
7.1 Animate the CAD view while solving Point Cloud alignments
The CAD View will now show an animation of the Point Cloud and features as the alignments
are being calculated. This provides an important visual feedback on how well the alignment
process is coming along.

7.2 Best-fit alignment improve accuracy

Developments have been made to improve the reliability and reproducibility of the Point
Cloud alignments in version 10.4. The target has been set that 75% of all Point Clouds will align
to CAD without the use of auxiliary tools like Aligning Points or CAD Layers.

7.3 Improve speed of the Best-fit alignment when using Point Clouds
In addition to the accuracy improvements, the speed of the alignment algorithms has been
increased significantly.

8 Devices
8.1 Recognize Edge LLP when it is connected while software is running.
Hot plugging of the LLP is now supported in CAM Measure 10.4. Once the LLP is connected,
CAM2 Measure will automatically enable the Measurement command for Point Clouds.

8.2 Improve results from TrackArm when devices are connected wirelessly
The TrackArm device position calculation was being affected when either devices was running
wirelessly. This problem was due to the fact that there was occasional data loss from the
devices as a result of wireless interference. In Version 10.4, the new TrackArm device position
calculation is taking this situation into account and will result in much more accurate positons,
even under such circumstances.

11

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8.3 The user should confirm when deleting features used to calculate a Device
Position
CAM2 Measure 10.4 will now ask to confirm when deleting features that are used to calculate
the Device Positions. Removing such features may be critical to a measurement job as the
positions will not be resolvable in some scenarios.

9 Labels: New screen label layout options

New label layout options have been added with this version. To access the new layout options,
you now have a drop-down button where the different options are accessible.

9.1 Labels: New screen label layout options: Fixed Mode

One new layout option is to fix the position of the labels on screen independently
of the position of the associated feature. This is identified by the Screen option
available in the Labels drop-down.

9.2 Labels: New screen label layout options: Refine Label Position
There is also a new Feature-based label positioning option. When you select this option, the
labels will be positioned close to the source feature. This layout option is available by selecting
the Feature entry from the drop-down.

10 QuickTools
10.1 Consolidate and extend export options for Export Measurement Data and
View Report steps
Both the View Report and the Export Measurement Data commands support the capability to
export data files yet the options to specify how the file is saved and what level of user
interaction was required were different for both commands. With this enhancement we have
consolidated and now support the same experience for both QuickTools steps. The options for
file export in both commands now include:
-

Ask user to save file: for either command, the user is shown a File Save dialog to save
out the file. The user will control the file name saved.
Save directly to file: In this option, a predetermined file name is selected and the file
will be overwritten without user interaction.
Save file directly to folder: The file will be exported to a folder. Depending on the
command, different file naming options are provided
File format: the user can select the file extension of the file to be exported. This will vary
depending on the command.

10.2 The user can define a QuickTool step that only sets or computes a Device
Position
For very specific jobs, it is required that the calculation of the device position be enforced in
the Workflow. For such cases, it is necessary to provide QuickTools steps that only set a given
device position and consequently a step that will only Solve a given device position.
This now enables a QuickTools program to set the device position and then instruct the user to
measure the Device Position points and then automate the calculation when the Device
Position points have been calculated.

12

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10.3 QuickTools: The user can import header information from a predefined txt
file
This is yet another improvement intended to support Automation. With this new capability, the
users can have an external system define a txt file containing the header information for a
given measurement that is then imported at the beginning of the QuickTool. The format of the
txt file is simple and can be easily created by hand or by any automated system:
-

Each line indicates a Property of the Header

Each line can contain 2 or 3 strings, separated by ; character
o Property name or internal CAM2 Measure 10 ID
o Property value
o True/False (optional, when missing, the default value is True)

In order to enable the loading of the fixed file at the start of the QuickTool,
select the QuickTool and select the newly added Import Session Data option
in the Session Data selector. When you choose this option, you can now select
a specified file from where the Session Data for this QuickTool execution will be
loaded.
In addition to the import and as a way to make this automation easier, the
Document Properties dialog now has a new button that allows the user to
export the header strings to a txt file. Here you will be able to see the IDs that
CAM2 Measure uses internally to represent the default header strings. From
there you can control whether those strings are checked by changing the
True/False value accordingly.

11 Others:
This section will describe some miscellaneous additions that have been primarily driven by
customer requests.

11.1 Document Header: Add automatic header field for Active Device name
The name of the active device is now also available as a reportable Document Header string.
This provides traceability back to the measurement device which is often required for ISO
certification purposes.

11.2 Feature Visibility: The user can select one or more features and show only
those via a single command.
A new command has been added to allow you a very quick access to showing only a
selected set of features. This new command is available via the drop down that can be
accessed through the new View split button. When you run this command, only the selected
features will be visible and all other features will be hidden. Note that this command also
supports Folders as well where the folder will be set Visible however it will not change the
visibility of the features inside and only those that are set to be visible will be shown.

11.3 File: File Open should open at last folder used within session
While a session is open, the File Open and File Save dialogs will open at the same folder where
they were opened last time. This allows a faster workflow for users that are working from a
specific folder during a given session where they do not have to navigate from the default
folder to the folder they used last. Note that when the Applications is restarted, the default
folders will be used the first time again.

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11.4 Measurement: Allow exporting Deviation Markers to a file

File Export has now been enhanced to also include a command to export Deviation Markers
to a text file. This allows the user to export those points to edit them to import them later into
the same project or to a new project.

11.5 Measurement: Make Material Compensation more intuitive

The material compensation of Inspect Surface Points was controlled with two check boxes.
These options were not very intuitive for our users and, in most cases, our users have two well
defined applications for measuring with Material Compensation: Measuring on the back side
of the part or measuring on a fixture while comparing to the CAD. These options are now
explicitly exposed in the Measurement ribbon. The user can now choose between
measurement on CAD, B-side and Fixture while in each case the measurements are then
compared to the A-side of the CAD.
Note: these commands only work correctly when you only have A-side CAD models that do
not have the material back side as well. For CAD files with material, you should use the normal
Inspect Surface commands.

11.6 Reporting: Form of Point Cloud should not appear in report when it is
unchecked in the Feature Information Panel
Unchecking the Form property for the Point Cloud would not control the visibility of this property
in the Report. This is now possible in this new version of CAM2 Measure 10.4.

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12 Exercises for learning CAM2 Measure 10.4 new features

12.1 Surface Inspection on CAD files with Inverted Surfaces
AS mentioned in section ####, CAM2 Measure 10.4 will now trust the CAD normal vectors
when measuring Surface points. As a result, it is important to always correct the normal vectors
on imported CAD files. This change now allows us to perform reliable Surface measurements
with a Laser Tracker without the need for a compensation point for every measurement.
Note: This exercise is primarily intended for a Laser Tracker but is equally valid for FARO Arm
measurement.
The files used in this exercise can be found at this location:
Step 0: Setup preferences
Step 1: Load CAD Model
Step 2: Fix CAD surface orientation
Step 3: Align CAD Part
Step 4: Measure Inspect Surface Points
Step 5: View Report

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12.2 Scanning Part Inspection no CAD

In this exercise we will show how you can perform a prismatic part inspection with an LLP even
if you do not have CAD for that part.
The files used in this exercise can be found at this location:
Step 1: Measure your clipping plane by probing
Step 2: Scan your part from multiple positions
Step 3: Cleanup point cloud
Step 4: Register point clouds (with fine registration)
Step 5: Extract measured features
Step 6: Create a CS & Align
Step 7: Create Cross Section
Step 8: Analyze Cross Section
Step 9: Enter nominal data
Step 10: View Report

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12.3 Scanning Part Inspection With CAD

In this exercise we will show how you can perform a point cloud part inspection with an LLP
with comparison to CAD.
The files used in this exercise can be found at this location:
Step 1: Scan part
Step 2: Align Part to CAD with PC alignment
Step 3: Pick Nominal features / Extract measured
Step 4: Place callouts on PC
Step 5: Create Cross Section
Step 6: Analyze Cross Section, refine area of Interest
Step 7: Show Report

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