Maybe I’m the lucky one but as a matter of fact, I had chance to use almost all the major cmm software in the market (about 14 in total). And from time to time I found there are people on different cmm forums asking for “unbiased” opinion so they can make decision on their purchase. Then unsurprisingly you’ll see many responses with “unbiased” opinions. I’ll say, be realistic, how can you be totally “unbiased”. Anyway, I’d like to share some of my “biased” opinions since I know those major software pretty well (not just used it).
| Editor Note: The following article is by Ray Xing, a regular and valued contributor to CMM Quarterly. The content of his article are his opinion based on his vast experience and is not meant to be an endorsement of any software. CMM Quarterly does not endorse any particular software. The intent is to present all software and let the reader form his own opinion. |
Brown&Sharpe (Hexagon)
1, PC-DMIS
This is a big name with no doubt and also one of my favourite software. Very powerful almost on any inspection functionality. Famous for bugs too, some bugs are really annoying like changing nominals (3.5, 3.7). The really good thing about this software is the support and resources form Wilcox site. Many years ago I downloaded all the VB scripts and modified them to meet my needs like changing feature names globally. And I like the hyperview reporting a lot but now the newest 4.3 has all the goodies so you don’t need hyperview reporting anymore. It’s not a perfect software for sure, one example is once you start your program in one unit you can never switch to another unit half way so you have to start a brand new program.
2, MM4
t;This is such an old software that probably no one is using it. But I want to mention it because before PC-DMIS I used it a lot and enjoyed almost everything in it. The best thing is it almost has no bug.
ZEISS
1, Calypso
I think Calypso is getting more and more users especially in aerospace and power generation industries. This is a very unique software in that it employs Object Oriented Programming concept versus all the other software using procedure oriented (programming in measurement orders) methods. So you can define all the GD&T you want to check (called characteristics in Calypso) and then when you run through the program will pick all the related features automatically. Also it will figure out all the necessary clearance moves based on your settings. But I don’t see some of the powerful Umess functions in it.
2, Umess
A very powerful but strange beast (running under HP Unix) in cmm software industry. If you start your cmm jobs with any windows based graphical software then you’ll definitely hate it. But I know there’re many Umess lovers out there and I’m one of them because I still see many things that Umess can do but other software can’t do. Equipped with Prismo vast xxt plus a rotary table, you get a best scanning cmm.
3, Usoft
I really don’t think it’s necessary to mention it but as a dos based software it’s not that bad. At least I remember it’s quite easy to save the result file after running the program, just a F3 (maybe F2) and give it a name to create a .res file.
To be continued …
Ray Xing
Senior Application Engineer
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