Free Software

Free surface metrology software!

Digital Metrology Solutions provides custom metrology software for special analysis of measured data.  Depending on the customer's requirements, this software can either operate in an offline mode or through direct integration with a wide variety of instruments.  If you have an instrument that makes the measurement, but doesn't provided the desired analysis or graphics contact Digital Metrology.

Metrology isn't just a laboratory activity!

The offline analysis of measurement data "back at the engineer's desk" is becoming more desirable in today's culture.  Under this approach, the laboratory instruments generate raw, digital data sets rather than paper printouts.  The digital data can subsequently be archived and/or analyzed (and re-analyzed) under a variety of conditions. 

To give you a flavor for the offline analysis of measurement data, two (completely free) software packages have been developed.  SigmaSurf is a surface texture analysis package and SigmaRound is a similar package for the analysis of roundness. 

These two topics (surface texture and roundness) represent very good examples of the importance of offline analysis.  Surface texture and roundness analyses require the selection of many items (filters, bandwidths, reference geometries, etc.) which can have a significant impact on the reported numerical results.  Thus, in situations where these settings are to be determined or where advanced data analysis is required, it makes very good engineering (and economic) sense to use the laboratory equipment to generate the data sets (via measurement) and then offline computers to provide the analysis.

SigmaSurf

SigmaSurf 1.0 has been well very received by the metrology community as an interesting tool for experimenting with surface finish data and exploring the effects of filtering.  Below is a screenshot. (Note the GIF format of the image alters the colors on some displays.)

The freeware version of SigmaSurf allows users to import data (through an ASCII file format) and study the effects of various filters while viewing the Primary, Waviness and Roughness profiles at various scales.

SigmaSurf demonstrates a small set of the capabilities that Digital Metrology can provide to its customers regarding the development of custom surface profile analysis.   Contact Digital Metrology for more details regarding:

• Additional numerical parameters
• Additional filtering capabilities
• Fourier analysis
• Direct import capabilities for your instrument's data files
• Additional graphical analyses
• Serial or analog data acquisition
• SPC or database export of results

To install SigmaSurf:  1) download  SigSrf10.zip (1151 KB),  2) extract* the files into a temporary directory and then  3) run "Setup.exe" from that directory. 

SigmaRound

The "sister" application to SigmaSurf has just been released!   SigmaRound is a highly interactive software package allowing the user to experiment with filtering and reference circles as applied to software-generated or user-imported data files.  A screenshot is provided below.  (Note the GIF format of the image alters the colors on some displays.)

Some of the further roundness analysis capabilities that Digital Metrology can provide its customers include:

• Additional numerical parameters
• Direct import capabilities for your instrument's data files
• Harmonic (chatter) analysis
• Outlier detection and removal
• Partial arc analysis
• Serial or analog data acquisition
• SPC or database export of results

SigmaRound version 1.1 incorporates a modification to the calculation of the minimum zone reference circle.  This modification results in a faster and more accurate computation.  Be sure to upgrade your current version!

To install SigmaRound:  1) download  SigRnd112.zip (1097 KB),  2) extract* the files into a temporary directory and then  3) run "Setup.exe" from that directory. 

*If you cannot extract the setup files from the ZIP file, visit www.winzip.com to download a file extraction utility.