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

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/356/359/
alternately
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defining
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magnetic
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reflective surface
sagittal
secured
shadowgraphic
spherometer
structure
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technique
tooling
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traveling
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visual