Abstract: The present invention is a process by which optical surfaces of lenses, particularly plastic progressive lenses and molding shells for producing lenses are manufactured directly in a single step according to didicidual data. A blank from which an optical surface or a molding shell is to be manufactured is held at the workpiece carrier of a spindle axis (Z axis) of a shaping machine and is directly turned into its final form by a turning tool which can move relative to the blank (in the X axis), i.e., transversely to the direction of displacement of the tool. During each rotation of the spindle, the turning tool is incrementally adjusted towards or away from the blank depending on the characteristic surface data, which may be predetermined or calculated on-line.

Abstract: The electronic system (20) of the probe head of a coordinate measuring machine permits the digital setting of parameters which determine the nature and manner of signal processing, such as trigger levels, the characteristic of frequency filters, and time intervals between several coherent probe signal pulses. Different parameter combinations are stored together in data files which can be called up in accordance with the selected measurement task or in accordance with the probe configuration which has been installed in probe head.

Abstract: A method for target-range measurement of round-trip transit time, for laser light pulses transmitted from the rangefinder and target-reflected back to a measuring device, is based on the fact that a predetermined measurement cycle is subdivided into time intervals and that, in each time interval, it is recorded whether a reflected light pulse has or has not arrived. A system for carrying out the method is characterized by the fact that, instead of totalizing counter modules, successive storage locations in a serial memory device are sequentially indexed under clock-pulse control and, depending upon the time at which a target-reflected pulse is detected, a logic signal is supplied for storage at the instantaneously receptive location within the memory device. Signal-evaluation apparatus including a microprocessor is connected to the memory device to evaluate range from the memory location at which the logic signal is found.

Abstract: A computer-operated coordinate-measurement machine has two length-measurement systems arranged in parallel for measuring the longitudinal displacement of a probe carried by the portal (3-5) of the machine, and these two length-measurement systems (13, 14) may belong to different precision classes. A computer-associated device (16) forms an absolute position-measurement value (Ym) from length-measurement signals of the more precise measurement system (13) and said device forms a dynamic measurement or instantaneous deviation value (Ys-Ym) from the difference between length-measurement signals of the respective systems (13, 14). The computer of the machine calculates the effective instantaneous position (Ym+.DELTA.y) of the probe (9a, b, c) borne by the portal (3-5), using the instantaneous value of the transverse position of the probe on the portal, in conjunction with the absolute measurement value (Ym) and the dynamic measurement value (Ys-Ym).

Abstract: Pictures of an object to be measured are taken from several different positions or aspects by a video camera which is mounted via a two-axis articulating head to the measurement arm of a coordinate-measuring machine. The pictures taken from the different positions or aspects are stored and are evaluated with respect to the coordinates of characteristic points of interest on the surface of the object by the method of space intersection, known from photogrammetry. And, in this connection, the position-measurement values supplied by the scales of the coordinate-measuring machine and the angle-measurement values supplied by the articulating head are used for a calculated determination of the coordinates for each of the points of interest on the surface of the object.

Abstract: A coordinate-measuring machine has a vertical column which is linearly guided in one horizontal direction (x) and on which a measurement arm is guided for vertical displaceability. The linear movement (x) is produced by a carriage in which the column is mounted for rotational displacement about a vertical axis. A workpiece to be measured is mounted to a turntable. The construction provides a coordinate measuring machine having four axes, two linear and two rotational, and the machine is structurally compact in terms of the measurement volume which is achievable.

Abstract: The invention contemplates use of a suction bell to enhance the loading with which a guided machine part is gravitationally supported on its guide. In application to a machine in which the machine part is movably supported on air bearings, the suction bell applies a preload force of magnitude to optimize the stiffness of air-bearing action and to maintain an air gap of uniform capillary thickness, free of mechanical contact between the machine part and its supporting surface.

Abstract: A probe head for a multiple-coordinate measuring machine defines the at-rest or zero position of a movable probe-pin holder part with respect to a relatively fixed housing part of the head, by employing a flexible coupling between a circular base of the probe-pin holder and a circular reference surface of the housing. The flexible coupling comprises a stacked plurality of interconnected flat disks or rings of spring material, one ring on top of the next, and their interconnections are at sector regions which are at progressively staggered, angularly offset locations, from one to the next pair of sector-connected adjacent surfaces in the stack. In the at rest condition, all rings of the coupling are axially compressed, with their flat surfaces in direct axial abutment with each other, as well as with the fixed part and the movable part of the probe head.

Abstract: The invention concerns a probe head of the so-called measuring type with scales which supply signals proportional to the position of a probe pin in its deflected state. A probe-pin carrier is the movable part of the probe head, being mounted indirectly on at least three intermediate bodies which, in their turn, are guided linearly in a fixed or housing part of the probe head. As a result of the symmetrical arrangement of the linear guides and the identical mass of intermediate bodies, like inertial responses characterize probe deflection in all directions in space. The workpiece-contacting force is, therefore, independent of coordinate direction in a dynamic operation of the probe head, as in the course of a continuous scan of a workpiece profile.

Abstract: At least one of the surfaces of the glass or glass-ceramic graduated-scale support (12) of a measuring device is drawn toward a corresponding surface of the guide part (11) by the capillary action of a liquid film (13). The graduated-scale support floats without friction on this liquid film and is secured against floating away laterally by low-friction stops (16-18) which can also be formed of the liquid film itself or suitable shaping of graduated-scale support and of the guide part to which it is mounted. The graduated-scale support advantageously consists of a material having a precisely known small coefficient of thermal expansion, such as quartz glass, or of a material having a negligibly small coefficient of expansion, such as the commercially available glass ceramic material known as Zerodur. By these measures, length or other measurement errors attributable to thermal effects are minimized.

Abstract: A work-contacting probe system is selectively operable as a single-stage or as a two-stage system. The system consists of a first central probe head of large diameter and of one or more small or auxiliary probe heads of dimensions which are reduced as compared with the first probe head. The small probe head can be selectively accommodated, in substitution of a rigid probe pin on the probe-chucking receptacle of the central probe head. Upon substitution of the auxiliary probe-head system for a rigid probe pin, associated electronic circuitry automatically responds to the fact of substitution, (1) by substantially increasing spring-preload force on the probe-chucking receptacle of the central probe head, thereby converting the central probe head for collision-detection service, while (2) connecting work-contacting signals from the auxiliary probe-head system for exclusive service of measurement functions.

Abstract: The invention contemplates a pneumatically driven piston as a preloading device, continuously urging the movable part (11) of a probe head into precise seating engagement with its fixed bearing (10), (12) in the housing of the probe head. The piston is movable in a cylinder (4) that is supplied with variable regulated pressure determined by a controlled regulating valve (16). Different contacting forces can be automatically and rapidly adjusted by the control system (18) of a coordinate-measuring machine to which the probe head is mounted, and the probe head can be tared to compensate for the different individual weights of successively different probe pins that are used in a given program of multiple-point coordinate measurements on a workpiece.

Abstract: To overcome friction in the mount of the switching-type probe head, a probe (5/6) displaceably mounted therein is transiently excited in oscillation for a predetermined time after each contacting process. The same piezoelectric element (17) as that which produces the initial work-contact signal in the probe head can additionally be used to stimulate the oscillations.

Abstract: For a horizontal orientation of a switching-type probe head, force developing device is provided to compensate for a component (F.sub.1) of the gravitational weight vector (F.sub.g) of the deflectably movable part (11) of the probe head, the compensating force being perpendicular to the direction of loading the movable part (11) into its at-rest (undeflected) null position in the probe head. This force-developing device is illustratively a magnetic bearing (5, 6) which is operative without involving any added mechanically contacting action within the probe head.