Front lighted optical tooling method and apparatus

Patent · Tue Jun 18 00:00:00 EDT 1985

OSTI ID:865486

Stone, William J ^[1]

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1. Kansas City, MO

An optical tooling method and apparatus uses a front lighted shadowgraphic technique to enhance visual contrast of reflected light. The apparatus includes an optical assembly including a fiducial mark, such as cross hairs, reflecting polarized light with a first polarization, a polarizing element backing the fiducial mark and a reflective surface backing the polarizing element for reflecting polarized light bypassing the fiducial mark and traveling through the polarizing element. The light reflected by the reflecting surface is directed through a second pass of the polarizing element toward the frontal direction with a polarization differing from the polarization of the light reflected by the fiducial mark. When used as a tooling target, the optical assembly may be mounted directly to a reference surface or may be secured in a mounting, such as a magnetic mounting. The optical assembly may also be mounted in a plane defining structure and used as a spherometer in conjunction with an optical depth measuring instrument. A method of measuring a radius of curvature of an unknown surface includes positioning the spherometer on a surface between the surface and a depth measuring optical instrument. As the spherometer is frontally illuminated, the distance from the depth measuring instrument to the fiducial mark and the underlying surface are alternately measured and the difference in these measurements is used as the sagittal height to calculate a radius of curvature.

• Research Organization: Kansas City Plant (KCP), Kansas City, MO (United States)
• DOE Contract Number: AC04-76DP00613
• Assignee: United States of America as represented by United States (Washington, DC)
• Patent Number(s): US 4523849
• Application Number: 06/509,554
• OSTI ID: 865486
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

front
lighted
optical
tooling
method
apparatus
shadowgraphic
technique
enhance
visual
contrast
reflected
light
assembly
including
fiducial
mark
hairs
reflecting
polarized
polarization
polarizing
element
reflective
surface
bypassing
traveling
directed
pass
frontal
direction
differing
target
mounted
directly
reference
secured
mounting
magnetic
plane
defining
structure
spherometer
conjunction
depth
measuring
instrument
radius
curvature
positioning
frontally
illuminated
distance
underlying
alternately
measured
difference
measurements
sagittal
height
calculate
measuring optical
reference surface
light reflected
polarized light
measuring instrument
reflecting surface
assembly including
reflected light
reflective surface
optical assembly
fiducial mark
front lighted
optical tooling
optical depth
lighted shadowgraphic
tooling method
frontally illuminated
/356/359/