Plastic/Polymer Medical Implants

VisionGauge® Digital Optical Comparator For Accurate & Robust Inspection & Measurement Of Plastic Medical Implants

A wide variety of plastic materials are used in medical implants. For example, today most total knee replacement implants and many total hip replacement implants contain ultra-high molecular-weight polyethylene (UHMWPE). Among other benefits, this plastic provides cushioning and movement. Other examples of plastic medical implants include high density polyethylene (HDPE) for facial reconstruction implants and polyketones (PEEK) that are common for spinal applications. For the right applications, plastic materials can present significant benefits as plastics are in general both more resistant to chemicals and lighter than metals. Given all of this, it’s not surprising that the range of medical implant applications for plastics is very wide.

Total hip/knee replacement implants
hip stem replacement - radiograph

Total hip and knee replacement systems are made up of both metal & plastic components

Many plastic medical implants can be produced using conventional manufacturing processes such as CNC machining, injection molding, and 3D printing. This allows the fabrication of medical implants with very complex and unique geometries.

Plastic Medical Implant Inspection

However, like with all medical implants, the tight geometries involved need to be precisely controlled. In the past, this was often problematic as traditional optical comparators, historically one of the most used inspection systems for medical implants, have struggled when dealing with plastic parts. Specifically, the image of plastic parts produced by these systems tends to exhibit lots of glare and reflections. With traditional optical comparators, it’s often difficult to determine an appropriate level of illumination for plastic and polymer implants that allows the user to make out the features of interest without creating an over-brilliance of other surfaces. It’s a difficult balance that tends to introduce even more operator-subjectivity.

Digital Optical Comparators Ensure Quality Control of Plastic Medical Implants

The VisionGauge® Digital Optical Comparator overcomes all these limitations. Its illumination is based on new and completely different technology that produces crisp and clear high-resolution images, with high contrast and superb definition, of plastic parts. Furthermore, all of VisionGauge®’s illumination is LED-based and programmable. This eliminates operator-to-operator variability and produces repeatable illumination conditions for extremely repeatable plastic parts measurements!

Medical polymer implants for inspection
Plastic implants for medical inspection

Plastic implants come in many different geometries to carry out a wide range of functions

Medical plastic part inspection
Medical plastic implant measurements
Medical industry plastic implant measurements

VisionGauge®’s illumination works just as well on plastic parts as it does on metal parts

Medical polymer implant measurement

The crisp & sharp edges produced by VisionGauge® allow for very accurate measurements

LED-based Illumination for High-accuracy Measurement

VisionGauge®’s illumination is extremely flexible and many different types are available (i.e. transmitted, reflected on-axis and off-axis, etc.). The LED-based illumination also produces very low heat, requires very little power and remains stable over a very long lifetime.

With its new, advanced and flexible illumination, the VisionGauge® Digital Optical Comparator is the ideal solution for detailed inspection and high-accuracy measurement of the wide variety of plastic medical implants being produced by today’s medical manufacturers – directly on the shop floor with no operator-to-operator variability.

Contact us about the details of your application and learn more about the other applications VisionGauge® Digital Optical Comparators can solve.

Download a .pdf version of this Application Note.

Stent Inspection and Measurement

The perfect solution for stent inspection and measurement

Stents are small, expandable tubes used to treat narrowed arteries. They are critical precision devices in which no manufacturing imperfections can be accepted. The VisionGauge® Digital Optical Comparator is your complete solution to carry out the inspection and measurement of coronary, endovascular, and other types of stents:

stent pattern example

  • Quickly perform fast and accurate inspection on 100% of your parts, directly on the production floor.
  • Completely eliminate operator subjectivity!
  • Carry out both defect detection and high-accuracy measurements.
  • We offer a complete range of solutions: from manual to fully-automated.
  • No limitations on the stent length or diameter. Verify parts across the entire stage travel so that even large parts can be checked at high magnification, with very fine resolution.
  • Integrated 4th axis rotating mandrel allows for full 360° inspection at very high resolution.
  • Supports both bare-metal uncoated stents and drug-eluting coated stents.
  • VisionGauge® Digital Optical Comparators have a broad set of measurement, defect detection, and pattern matching tools to quickly, easily, and very accurately carry out all required verifications.
  • With their extended optical depth-of-field and long working distance, our systems are perfectly equipped to meet the challenges of stent inspection.
  • Automatically measure and display deviations from nominal, quickly identifying out-of-tolerance areas.
  • Advanced patented & patent-pending technology!
  • Operator review tools can be used for defect evaluation and classification.
  • Automatically collect measurement results, statistics, images, and additional data for complete electronic documentation and reporting.

The VisionGauge® Digital Optical Comparator can verify stent integrity, measure critical dimensions, and verify patterns. Our systems are fast, easy-to-operate, and highly-accurate – capable of exceeding the most demanding inspection requirements.

Verify Stent Integrity

Verify stent integrity & measure critical dimensions

various lengths of stents are supported

VisionGauge® supports different types, lengths & diameters of stents

stent pattern example
Another supported stent example pattern
another example stent pattern

Able to verify different patterns

Download a .pdf version of this Application Note.

Contact us with your application requirements and to learn more about additional applications successfully using the VisionGauge® Digital Optical Comparator.

Orthopedic/Medical Rasp Inspection and Measurement

VisionGauge® Digital Optical Comparators are the Perfect Solution for Inspecting Orthopedic/Medical Rasps

The VisionGauge® Digital Optical Comparator is widely used by orthopedic implant manufacturers to check medical rasps for a number of reasons:

  • Automatically compare parts to their CAD data (no more overlays!)
  • With its patented CAD Auto-Align™ and CAD Auto-Pass/Fail™ tools, the system can check rasps completely automatically!
  • VisionGauge®’s patented Tooth Checker™ tool automatically identifies the part’s teeth and allows you to check all roots and crests against their tolerances.Medical Rasp Inspection with a VisionGauge® Digital Optical Comparator
  • Check the entire profile at once or each tooth individually, directly on the shop floor!
  • Eliminate operator subjectivity!
  • Much faster than traditional approaches.
  • Because the system doesn’t require any programming, it is especially well-adapted for small lots and quick part changeover.
  • Automatically collect measurements, images, statistics, and other data for complete device history documentation.
  • The system is not limited to the camera’s field-of-view; It can compare a part directly to its CAD data across the entire stage travel, so even large parts can be checked at high magnification, with very fine resolution.
  • The system is perfectly suited to deal with challenging applications in orthopedic implant inspection with its extended optical depth-of-field and Auto-Focus tool.
  • Different types of adapted computer-controlled LED illumination are supported to eliminate glare and make defects stand out. The system works extremely well on both metal & plastic parts!
  • Automatically measure and display deviations from nominal and quickly identify out-of-tolerance areas.
customized medical rasp inspection
Medical rasps inspection with multiple entities verification

The system is very flexible and supports different inspection approaches depending on what you want to check…

Examples of measurements performed on medical rasps

Measure tooth height, tooth spacing, tooth angle, tooth bottom radius, etc…

Front Illumination of a Medical Rasp

The system’s front illumination produces a very sharp image showing a very high level of detail.

The VisionGauge® Digital Optical Comparator is the new standard for inspecting rasps, orthopedic tools, and implants in the medical industry. Contact us with your application for more information and videos showing rasps inspection in action.

Download a .pdf version of this VisionGauge® Digital Optical Comparator Application Note here.

VisionGauge®’s Patented “Tooth Checker™” Tool

VisionGauge®’s Patented “Tooth Checker™” tool is specially adapted to check parts
with teeth

VisionGauge®’s powerful and innovative patented “Tooth Checker™” tool automatically locates, to very high accuracy, the crests and / or roots of  a part’s teeth or threads and determines if they are within their tolerance band. It can also determine all other part characteristics, such as tooth pitch, thread depth, major & minor diameters, etc…

Bone screw teeth verification with the VisionGauge® “Tooth Checker™” tool
  • Fully automated
  • Completely independent of part orientation & clocking
  • With a rotary stage the crest and root points can be used to calculate part runout
  • Can also be applied to parts that are larger than the field-of-view
  • The tool is usable in both manual and fully-automated modes (i.e. within an automated program)
  • The tool produces a PASS / FAIL result (which can be exported and used in all of the same ways as the current PASS / FAIL results) and also shows where the part passes and where it fails
  • Supports linearly variable tolerances, plus/minus tolerances, plus/plus tolerances, minus/minus tolerances, etc…
  • Smart “Adaptive Thresholding” automatically disregards point imperfections

Perfect for quickly and accurately checking:

  • Bone screws
  • Medical rasps
  • Gears
  • Fluted Instruments
  • Threads & fittings
  • Etc…
Medical Rasp Inspection and Verification

The Tooth Checker tool can check that either crests, roots, or both, are in tolerance

Automatic thread inspection: Automatically detect crests and roots in major/minor diameters of teeth or screw threads with VisionGauge®’s new Patent Pending “Tooth Checker™”.

Quick & Easy to Set Up!

VisionGauge Tooth Checker Nomenclature

Using the crest & root points that the Tooth Checker tool has found, it can then automatically determine all other part characteristics

Download a .pdf version of this VisionGauge® Digital Optical Comparator Application note here.

Inspection & Measurement of Orthopedic Implants

The Ideal Solution for Orthopedic Implant Inspection (including knees, hips, plates, shoulders, and many more)

There are many reasons why the VisionGauge® Digital Optical Comparator is employed by the manufacturers of orthopedic implants to inspect and measure the medical implants and devices they produce:

  • Compare products directly to their CAD data, completely automatically (no more overlays or Mylars!)
  • VisionGauge®’s patented CAD Auto-Align™ and CAD Auto-Pass/Fail™ tools are easy to use to automatically inspect and measure parts, and they produce very high-accuracy results.
  • Demonstrated accuracy down to +/-0.0001″ in real-world applications, right on the shop floor!
  • VisionGauge® Digital Optical Comparators are proven faster and allow for significant gains in throughput compared to traditional comparators.
  • 100% consistent results between users – No more operator-to-operator variation!
  • Automated programs can be stored and recalled per part as needed or the system can be used in manual mode – either way, the system is especially well suited for inspecting small lots with rapid part changeover.
  • The systems provide multiple options for complete documentation and reporting of statistics, measurements, images, and other data.
  • The system’s extended optical depth-of-field and Auto-Focus tool easily overcome the difficulties of orthopedic implant inspection.
  • Make defects truly stand out and entirely remove glare with multiple options for adapted computer-controlled LED illumination. VisionGauge® Digital Optical Comparators produce stunning results on both metal and plastic parts!
  • Measure and display deviations from nominal completely automatically:  Quickly and easily locate areas that are outside of tolerance.
  • VisionGauge® Digital Optical Comparators are not limited to performing inspections only in the camera’s field-of-view:  A part can be compared to its CAD/DXF data across the entire stage travel. Check large and long parts at high magnification and very fine resolution with ease.
Knee implant inspected with auto pass/fail on a VisionGauge Digital Optical Comparator
orthopedic implant inspection of a plate with CAD Auto-Pass/Fail on a VisionGauge Digital Optical Comparator
Inspection and measurement of a plastic part on a VisionGauge Digital Optical Comparator
VisionGauge® Digital Optical Comparators also work extremely well inspecting plastic parts!

VisionGauge® Digital Optical Comparators are perfect to inspect a wide range of orthopedic implants and devices: knees, hips, plates, shoulders, and many more…

inspection of a very wide range of orthopaedic implants

The VisionGauge® Digital Optical Comparator is used by many medical device manufacturers to carry out the inspection of a very wide range of orthopaedic implants

Bone Screw Tooth Checker

With its patent pending Tooth Checker™ tool the VisionGauge® Digital Optical Comparator is perfect for checking medical bone screws

Hip stem inspection (orthopedic device) and measurement on a VisionGauge Digital Optical Comparator with CAD Auto-Align.
Orthopedic forging inspection on a VisionGauge Digital Optical Comparator

The systems are also widely used in the inspection of forgings.

The VisionGauge® Digital Optical Comparator is the new standard for inspecting orthopedic implants in the medical industry. Contact us to find out how we can solve your application.

Download a .pdf version of this VisionGauge® Digital Optical Comparator Application note here. Learn more about other inspection and measurement applications solved by our systems.

Automatic Bone Screw Inspection and Measurement

VisionGauge® Digital Optical Comparators are the perfect solution for automatic bone screw inspection and measurement.

The VisionGauge® Digital Optical Comparator is widely used by medical device manufacturers for automated  inspection and measurement of bone screws for many reasons:

Bone screw nomenclature for measurements

  • Automatically compare bone screws against their CAD data
  • With its proprietary patented CAD Auto-Align™ and CAD Auto-Pass/Fail™ tools, the system can check screws completely automatically, regardless of their orientation!
  • Eliminate operator subjectivity!
  • Collect measurements, statistics, images, and other data for complete device history information automatically
  • Thanks to the system’s extended depth-of-field, the entire screw can be in focus even at the helix angle (no need to constantly refocus)!
  • Measure the screw’s major and minor diameters, tooth pitch & spacing and other characteristics – even runout – completely automatically and to a very high accuracy
  • With the optional rotary stage, you can automatically measure the helix angle, very accurately!
  • The system is perfect for bone screw inspection and measurement directly on the shop floor
Bone screw teeth verification with the VisionGauge® “Tooth Checker™” tool

Patented CAD-Auto-Align™, CAD-Auto-Pass/Fail™ & Tooth Checker™ tools are perfect for locating the teeth crests and/or roots and checking the part’s profile

CAD Auto Pass/Fail and CAD Auto-Align tools on the VisionGauge Digital Optical Comparator inspecting threads and other features of interest on bone screws.

Check all the features of interest, quickly and to very high accuracy

Proprietary CAD-Auto-Align and CAD-Auto-Pass/Fail tools for bone screw measurement

Proprietary CAD-Auto-Align and CAD-Auto-Pass/Fail tools

Multiple bone screws ready for automated inspection on the VisionGauge Digital Optical Comparator

Load multiple screws onto the system to have them all checked completely automatically

Automatic inspection and measurement of threads and other dimensions of a bone screw

Automatically check screw dimensions

Bone screw head measurements

Check all of the features on the head

For bone screws inspection and measurement on the VisionGauge® Digital Optical Comparator, some manufacturers use horizontal configurations, while others use a vertical configuration. The decision to use one or the other is generally based on fixturing considerations. The hard chrome plated stage, made from hardened tooling steel, has industry standard dual dovetail grooves that make it compatible with existing mounting fixtures, and a drop-in replacement for traditional optical comparators. Rotary stages are also an option that can be added to these systems.

Download a .pdf version of this VisionGauge® Digital Optical Comparator Application Note.