New to Portable

PC-DMIS is not different. Only difference between our CMM and portable PC-DMIS is that CMM has CAD++ and portable has only CAD. Learning curve will be probing technique. Arms like the hits to be normal to the surface being probed. This way the arm can calculate correct vectors. However, this is not always true. How close to normal can human being hold the probe, anyway???

Are you planing to program the arm or inspect on the fly?

We don't use cad drawings for inspection so that shouldnt be an issue. Cam2 uses projection planes to calculate vectors automatically. Do you mean PC-DMIS uses the angle at which you take the hits to figure vectors or am i mistaken? I plan to make programs for high production or common parts and inspect smaller runs or one-off parts on the fly.

We don't use cad drawings for inspection so that shouldnt be an issue. Cam2 uses projection planes to calculate vectors automatically. Do you mean PC-DMIS uses the angle at which you take the hits to figure vectors or am i mistaken? I plan to make programs for high production or common parts and inspect smaller runs or one-off parts on the fly.

Yes, no, depends, yeah, that really is the answer.

There are such 'neat' things as single-hit holes (which aren't single hit).

As for vectors..... well, it will mostly depend on WHAT you are trying to measure. If it is a 3-D feature, then the vector is calculated based on the touches, but it bases the rough vector based on how you are holding the arm. For example, if you are measuring a plane (3-D feature), the rough vector will be calculated along the axis of the probe, then, once all the this are taken, Pcdmis uses the rough vector to get the vector direction, but uses the probed points to calculate the real vector.

Circles.... Pcdmis will comp for the ball, BUT, in order for it to comp the right direction, the probe must be pointed "into" the hole, so if you are using the BIG ball (15mm) in a BIG hole and are probing at the lip, the probe must be pointing INTO the material, and not into the hole (which you can do with the big probe/big hole) if ya follow me.

As for other things.... Well, you will learn quick (or had better learn quick!) that you need to pay VERY close attention to workplane!!!!! I just got done using my Romer arm & Pcdmis. Simple alignment (and there is a 'quick start' for alignments, but it wouldn't work for this one), plane for level, line for rotate, but then 2 more lines, intersecting the first line (2 points) then the mid-point of those 2 points for origin. Well, Pcmis starts out in a workplane. In order for those lines to be comped correctly, I had to change from WORKPLANE to PLN1 (measured plane) and the probe had to be pointed INTO the part to measure them. Ya follow that?

Yeah, the guts (Pcdmis) is the same, but the application can be quite different, do NOT let it rear up and chomp your hinder.

CAD++ and CAD are different versions off PC-DMIS. There are also PRO, Off-Line Programming, and so on. This will determine what options you have with your PC-DMIS(this can change how your tool-bars look). This has nothing to do with your shop drawings, or how you check the parts.
You are mistaken about vectors. PC-DMIS does not use angle alone to calculate vector, but it helps to be normal to the surface. For example, when you have to pick up a circle with a arm, its alway better to pick first point as close to nurmal to the wall of the circle as possible. Other points don not really matter.

You will also find that you will probably start using something that is called the quick start menu in pcdmis. Its pretty nice to lock into a part quick. Also the status window becomes useful because after the minimum amount of points for cir/plns/cyl you will start to see form error. That is nice because to can see if you took a bad hit or not. There are some quirks with the portable that you normally wouldn't see in the conventional world. Either way depending on what you are trying to accomplish with the arm I actually don't mind using them. They can get a lot don't fast if you know what you are doing.