An automatic non-contact measuring system for extracting the parameters of a screw thread was developed. It was integrated with a laser-based measuring unit for the longitudinal section of the thread profile and the dual-axis moving stage position system for the movement of the undetected object. Firstly, data points from the thread profile were collected by the measuring system, the non-uniform rational B-spline curve (NURBS) method with the minimal error constraints was used to carry out the fitting of the measured data and data partitioning was performed. Secondly, according to the processed data, the parameters, such as thread pitch, pitch diameter and half of thread angle, can be calculated. Thirdly, the errors were analyzed for the proposed system. Finally, the proposed system and method were verified for their good performance with acceptable accuracy and reliability. Compared with existing measurement methods, the designed non-contact optical measuring system was capable of measuring the parameters of the internal thread which is no less than the M4 and external thread with required accuracy.
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