An interior layout plan in the development of a new car is indispensable for investigation of safety, operability and comfortableness of a car. For efficiently carrying out the interior layout plan, it is essential to keep as data base and use analytically information on profiles of a large number of cars. We have developed an automatic measuring device utilizing a laser beam for interior dimensions. This paper describes a newly developed Laser Interior Profile Scanner (LIPS), which is a very small and light device utilized a laser diode as a measuring light source. The principle of the measurement employed a polar coordinate system, a coordinate value of a measuring point was determined by a distance and laser scanning angle. LIPS has been developed for non-contact, high precision within 1 mm and high-speed measurement of narrow and complicated interior profiles in cars. Measured results are indicated as three-dimensional coordinate values through a micro-computer, and can be immediately input into a data file of a CAD system.
