3D Surface Roughness and Wear Measurement, Analysis and Inspection

Getting the most from your 3D optical profiler

Give us a shout! We’re happy to help—often free of charge.

3D optical profilers can make amazing, high resolution measurements, very fast. But the measurement settings and software options can be overwhelming when you’re trying to optimize a measurement.

Having a measurement expert to turn to for advice can make the difference between efficiency and frustration. Michigan Metrology has been working with 3D optical profilers literally since their invention, and we make it our business to help users get the most from their measurement systems.

Talk to a Bruker value-added partner—free of charge

Michigan Metrology specializes in Bruker 3D optical profilers. Often with a quick call, or a Teams or Zoom meeting, we can uncover an issue in a measurement setup or software configuration—a lot of times in just a few minutes, “off the clock.” If the issue proves more challenging or the measurement more involved, we can open a more formal project and continue moving toward a solution.

How can we help? Here’s an example

Recently, a client came to us for help with some 3D optical profiler measurements. The company uses a mechanical “scratch tester” to determine the strength of the coating/substrate bond on their components. They then analyze the scratched areas with a 3D optical profiler to observe the failure mode that had occurred in each test.

To image the scratched region, they “stitch” together several measurements. The process was taking upwards of 15 minutes per measurement—too long to support their process. By sharing a screen through Microsoft Teams, we worked through their measurement procedure remotely. After a bit of experimentation, we were able to adjust their settings and reduce that measurement time by a factor of 10. With a short explanation and demonstration, they got the rhythm of the measurement and were able to carry on with an optimized process.

Stitched measurement like this used to be a tough trade-off between resolution and measurement time. But today, 3D optical profilers are able to make large field-of-view measurements, with high lateral and height resolution, in just a minute or two…if everything is set up correctly.

How to make it happen

If you work with 3D optical profilers and you run into a question or issue, contact us for assistance! We’re happy to help.