View source for Engineering:Optical tracer

An '''optical tracer''' is an X-Y tooling machine which utilises a photoeye to track toolpaths printed on a full-scale drawing and move a tool head accordingly. No Z-axis or cut commands can be read from the drawing, so an [[Engineering:Machinist|operator]] was still required to tell the machine, when and how deep it should cut.

It has been made largely obsolete by CNC systems.

==See also==
*[[Engineering:Polygraph (duplicating device)|Polygraph]]
*CNC

[[Category:Machine tools]]



{{Sourceattribution|Optical tracer}}