Metrology deals with methods and devices for determining physical quantities such as length, mass or temperature. The science of metrology is called metrology. It has always been a scientific discipline that is constantly evolving and represents a mirror of the respective scientific and technical progress. Measurement itself is an ancient object-related activity, and denotes the comparison as well as the evaluation of a quantitatively unknown quantity with a material measure. The language and tools of measurement have changed along with society throughout history. With the discovery of natural law relationships and innovations in technology, these have always been made usable in measurement technology. Thus, in contrast to its beginnings, modern metrology, like many other areas of life, relies to a large extent on digitized processes. Production metrology or industrial metrology refers to the methods and products of modern industrial production. This glossary is intended to be a small lexicon of the most important technical terms, principles, methods and applications related to metrology.
Industrial metrology refers to all measuring tasks, measuring equipment, measuring methods and metrological activities in industrial companies. The application examples of industrial metrology are manifold and often overlap, nevertheless it is useful to define three sub-areas: Production metrology deals with the measurement of angle, length, shape as well as surface and is indispensable for modern machine and equipment construction. Analytical metrology refers to the measurement of material properties and material concentration, and is used, for example, to determine the composition of raw materials. Process measurement technology covers the measurement of various process variables, such as temperature, pressure or flow rate. The tools, principles, methods and measuring devices used in industrial metrology are diverse and are constantly being developed. They include tactile and optical 2D and 3D measuring devices, which can also be combined and networked and controlled with CAD and CAM software. Since several measuring devices and ways are possible for most measuring tasks, it is worthwhile to have a professional assessment to choose the right strategy. In this way, even complex measuring tasks can be measured sensibly and precisely.
The German language uses the term 'Metrologie' as well as the term 'Messtechnik' to describe the science of metrology.