We measure cylinders, albeit large ones. If a cylinder is mounted on the CMM table oriented with the 'butt' toward the operator and the 'front' toward the back of the machine, from memory I believe we align in the following way -
Measure cylinder and level to it. If the cylinder is measured in the direction of the operator to the back of the machine, level to Y-. I don't believe any rotation is necessary in such a case. Origin Z and X to the cylinder. Make a point on the butt end to serve as the Y origin.
This works for us, although we are simply checking these cylinders for conformance of diameter.
Hope that helps. We pretty much have to figure things out for ourselves, having had very minimal training.
