The application of voxel size correction in X-ray computed tomography for dimensional metrology

X-ray computed tomography (CT) is a non-destructive, radiographic scanning technique that enables the visualisation and dimensional evaluation of both internal and external features of a workpiece; it is therefore an attractive alternative for measurement tasks that prove problematic for conventional tactile and optical instruments. The data output of a CT measurement is a volume of grey value integers that describe the material distribution of the scanned workpiece; the relative spacing of volume-elements (voxels) is termed voxel size and influences all dimensional information evaluated from a CT data-set. Voxel size is defined by the position of a workpiece relative to the X-ray source and detector, and is therefore prone to axis position errors, errors in the geometric alignment of the CT system’s hardware, and the positional drift of the X-ray focal spot. In this work a method is presented for calculating a voxel scaling factor that corrects for voxel size errors, and this method is then applied to a general X-ray CT measurement task and demonstrated to reduce measurement errors