Z APPROACHING MINIMUM ZONE METHOD FOR FLATNESS AND STRAIGHTNESS ERRORCALCULATION

A computational technique for the minimum zone method, which is used t o determine a reference plane from the measured surface data on a prec ision table or machine bed to verify surface flatness, is introduced. This technique, called the '''Z' approaching method'' in this paper, i s an analytical method without any assumptions and is simple compared to other techniques. This method can also be applied to the determinat ion of a reference line for straightness measurement of a carriage gui de. This method is compared with the graphical solution for the straig htness measurement of a straight edge.