9 September 2010

At the September 2010 International Manufacturing Technology Show (IMTS) in Chicago, IL the Dimensional Metrology Standards Consortium (DMSC) is proud to announce the first-ever award of DMIS certification which goes to Siemens PLM Software, a leading provider of product lifecycle management (PLM) software and services.  Siemens PLM Software’s new NX CMM Inspection Programming application – an integral part of the NX™ software CAD/CAM/CAE solution – is now the first and only product officially certified by the DMSC as producing DMIS part programs which conform to DMIS version 5.2 (the latest version) at the “prismatic level 2” conformance class.  Mr. Bailey Squier, Executive Director and General Manager of the DMSC, performed the certification.

The Dimensional Measuring Interface Standard (DMIS) has been under development for over 20 years by the non-profit standards-generating DMSC organization. DMIS is and continues to be the only international standard (DMIS version 4.0 is an ISO standard) for quality measurement information exchange.  DMIS version 5.2 is expected to become an ISO standard in the first quarter of 2011.

One challenge over the years has been the proliferation of DMIS implementations which comply with the standard at varying extents. This has been a non-trivial hindrance to interoperability given that interoperability is the goal of an information exchange standard. Taking full responsibility for this situation, the DMSC developed and announced in 2008 a DMIS Certification Program consisting of a certification process centered around two important items:

• A DMIS conformance test suite, generated by the NIST
• A document precisely specifying the criteria required in order to become certified

Currently, the NIST DMIS Test Suite (NDTS) and the certification criteria both address the conformance of DMIS generating software only, though there are plans to define a test for DMIS consuming software as well.

Please come to a certification award event at the DMSC booth E-5061, 3 PM Wednesday September 15, 2010, to celebrate this ground-breaking achievement with representatives of the DMSC and Siemens PLM Software.

Note:  NX is a trademark or registered trademark of Siemens Product Lifecycle Management Software Inc. or its subsidiaries in the United States and in other countries.