CAI has applications in industries ranging from food production[3] to aerospace, commonly being used in the quality assurance step of the manufacturing process.
It involves comparing manufactured objects with a CAD model, technical drawing or data sheet to ensure that the finished product is within specification and meets design intent.
CAI machines can use a variety of technologies depending on the material of the product to be inspected, the properties to be measured, and the precision required.
[3] Using machine vision, the CAI program can make decisions about objects by comparing them to a master photo or data array.
Laser scanning CAI machines use point clouds to generate a 3D model which is compared to the required specification.