X-ray computed tomography (CT) is increasingly used for dimensional metrology, allowing the inspection of both interior and exterior features impossible to observe using traditional optical and tactile measurement techniques. X-ray CT offers many benefits over traditional instruments as a visual inspection tool, however, extracting dimensional information from the reconstructed data-sets must be approached with caution due to error sources that can propagate through the image reconstruction processes. One error source originates from values of the source-to-object and source-to-detector distances; these are critical inputs as they define the voxel size, a global scalar directly influencing all dimensions extracted from the data. To reduce voxel size errors a reference workpiece can be scanned using the same measurement settings as the actual workpiece. By reconstructing the reference workpiece a reference dimension can be evaluated and this then used to adjust the voxel size of the actual workpiece. This reference dimension must be threshold independent, namely it is determined without the influence of edge detection thresholds. This paper offers a reference workpiece designed for measurement in an X-ray CT system, a coordinate measuring machine (CMM), and an optical profiler. Repeated measurements are made of the reference workpiece using all three instruments and these measurements compared and processed to provide reference dimensions required for voxel size correction.
