Digital Metrology Standards Consortium (DMSC) recently announced the release of the updated version of the Quality Information Framework (QIF) Standard: QIF 3.0.
Under the DMSC, a working group develops Rule Types and eXtensible Markup Language (XML) Schema in the QIF standard. The goal is to develop a rule model, i.e., the standard of representing rules used in inspection process planning.
Following is a summary of the QIF 3.0 Enhancements:
- Expansion of measurement workflow use cases supported by QIF
- Improvements to PMI modeling to support common CAD systems annotations like those from SolidWorks, PTC Creo, NX, and CATIA
- Concise measurement point storage
- Increased harmonization with ISO Geometrical Product Specification
- Improved support for metrology software and fitting algorithm specifications
- Improved traceability in statistics, including an option for bulk raw data
- Enhanced support for a comprehensive array of measurement device types in QIF Resources
- Support for measurement resource selection via QIF Rules
- Improved XSLT data integrity checking
The latest 3.0 version is an American National Standards Institute (ANSI) standard and was submitted and achieved ISO/TC184/SC4 fast-track approval. One of the key functions in QIF is measurement rule types and XML schema, i.e., QIF Rules. These rules provide industry with a standard way of representing and sharing dimensional measurement strategy and resources selection rules in a supplier network employing various CAD software platforms. For example, an OEM can specify what type of coordinate measuring machine, probes, and probe tips can be used based on the tightest tolerance, smallest internal feature size, longest internal feature size, feature orientations in a setup, the part bounding box sizes in X, Y, and Z, and measurement requirements.
Curtis Brown, President of DMSC commented: “We are thrilled to announce the approval of QIF v3.0 – 2018 as a new ANSI/DMSC standard. This QIF release amounts to the culmination of many hours of research, industry pilot projects, and feedback from production environments using QIF. We anticipate that this new release will continue the enthusiasm of using the QIF standard for both software/hardware providers and the manufacturing supply chain. Furthermore, this QIF data interoperability standard can realize downstream process automation and upstream data traceability that will enable manufacturing quality to become a key enabler for a model-based enterprise”.
QIF is an American National Standard supporting Digital Thread concepts in engineering applications ranging from product design through manufacturing to quality inspection. Based on the XML Standard, it contains a Library of XML Schema ensuring both data integrity and data interoperability in Model Based Enterprise implementation. DMSC is responsible for the oversight and maintenance of this standard.
Download QIF 3.0
Learn More about the QIF Standard
For More Information:
Curtis Brown, President
Digital Metrology Standards Consortium
Email: info@qifstandards.org
Website: qifstandards.org
