ISO 10360-13, VDI/VDE 2634, and ISO/IEC 17025: How to Verify a 3D Scanner's Accuracy Claims

Three quotes land on a procurement desk for the same reverse engineering job, and all three list "0.02 mm accuracy." One datasheet gives no test method at all. The second cites a VDI/VDE 2634 test the vendor ran in its own facility. The third references an ISO 10360-13 acceptance test performed by an accredited calibration lab, certificate number included. Same number, three completely different levels of supporting evidence.

That gap is the actual problem buyers run into, not a shortage of accuracy specs. Every handheld scanner catalog is full of numbers. What separates a claim you can act on from one you can't is whether it traces back to a named standard, a defined test procedure, and a lab that's accredited to run it.

This article walks through the three pieces of that chain: ISO 10360-13, the international standard built specifically for optical 3D measuring systems; VDI/VDE 2634, the German guideline that predates it and still shows up on most calibration certificates; and ISO/IEC 17025, the lab accreditation that establishes whether the test was performed by a demonstrably competent organization.

Why a Single Number Isn't a Test Report

An accuracy figure by itself answers almost nothing. It doesn't say what reference artifact was measured, what distance or lighting conditions applied, whether the result came from a brand-new unit fresh off the line or a five-year-old scanner pulled off a shop floor, or whether anyone outside the manufacturer checked the math.

Standards exist to close each of those gaps. ISO 10360-13 and VDI/VDE 2634 define the artifact, the procedure, and the pass/fail threshold. ISO/IEC 17025 establishes whether the lab that ran the test has demonstrated the competence to do it correctly. A number with all three behind it is comparable across vendors. A number with none of them is a marketing claim wearing a decimal point.

ISO 10360-13: The Standard Built for Optical 3D Scanners

ISO 10360-13:2021, part of the broader Geometrical Product Specifications (GPS) series, is titled "Acceptance and reverification tests for coordinate measuring systems (CMS): Part 13, Optical 3D CMS." It's the first ISO standard written specifically for contactless area sensors (ISO.org).

That category covers structured-light and blue-laser handheld scanners that build a 3D model by stitching together individual views into one coordinate system, rather than probing a part point by point.

The standard splits testing into two distinct events. An acceptance test happens once, typically when a new scanner arrives or a system is commissioned, to confirm that specific unit meets the manufacturer's stated performance before it goes into service.

A reverification test repeats a similar procedure on a fixed schedule afterward, to catch drift from optical contamination, calibration target wear, dropped equipment, or component aging before it shows up as bad parts on an inspection report.

Both tests measure the same core quantities: length measurement error across calibrated reference lengths placed at multiple positions and orientations in the working volume, probing error using a calibrated sphere, and sphere spacing error using a multi-sphere artifact or ball bar.

Every measured result gets compared against a maximum permissible error (MPE) value the manufacturer states in advance. Pass or fail depends on staying inside that boundary, not on hitting a perfect zero.

VDI/VDE 2634: The Standard That Came First and Still Runs Alongside It

Before ISO 10360-13 existed, German industry already had a working answer to the same question. VDI/VDE 2634, issued jointly by the Association of German Engineers (VDI) and the Association for Electrical, Electronic and Information Technologies (VDE), covers optical 3D measuring systems in three parts (GlobalSpec).

Part 1 addresses imaging systems with point-by-point probing. Part 2, issued in 2012, covers optical area-scanning systems evaluated as a single view.

Part 3, issued in 2008, extends that to multi-view systems that combine several scans into a shared coordinate frame, which is how most handheld optical scanners actually operate.

VDI/VDE 2634 defines three parameters that still appear on calibration certificates today: probing error in form (PF), probing error in size (PS), and sphere spacing error (SD), each evaluated against calibrated reference spheres and ball bars. Because ISO 10360-13 draws heavily on the same testing logic, the two standards are typically cited together rather than as competitors.

A recent comparison published through NIST found the ISO 10360-13 length tests are better at exposing miscalibration in a scanner's own optical model than the older VDI/VDE 2634-2 procedure is. That's one reason the newer standard is gradually becoming the primary reference while VDI/VDE 2634 stays in use alongside it (NIST).

For a buyer, the practical takeaway is simple: a spec sheet that names both standards and a specific part number, such as "VDI/VDE 2634 Part 3," is telling you exactly which artifact and procedure produced the number. A spec sheet that just says "meets international standards" is telling you nothing you can check.

What MPE Actually Promises, and What It Doesn't

Maximum permissible error is a boundary condition, not a guarantee about every point in a scan. When a test result stays within the MPE the manufacturer declared, the unit passes. That says the scanner performed within spec on that specific artifact, at that specific distance, under those specific lighting and temperature conditions, on the day of the test.

It does not say every point across a 700 mm scanning volume will land inside that same number, and it does not say a part with a difficult surface finish or a challenging feature geometry will measure the same way a calibrated reference sphere does. Confusing the MPE figure with a blanket promise about real-world part measurement is one of the most common ways accuracy numbers get misapplied on the shop floor.

An AccuArm spec sheet from SCANOLOGY makes this distinction concrete. The 2 m S-grade model is rated at 0.016 mm SPAT (MPE), spelling out explicitly that the figure is a maximum permissible error tested under ISO 10360-12, the parallel ISO 10360 part written for articulated-arm portable CMMs (PCMM) rather than optical scanners (SCANOLOGY).

A fixed CMM, a portable arm CMM, and an optical 3D scanner are three different measurement categories, each with its own dedicated ISO 10360 part. Comparing an optical scanner's ISO 10360-13 number against a PCMM's ISO 10360-12 number means comparing two different tests on two different kinds of hardware.

ISO/IEC 17025: Why the Lab Matters as Much as the Number

ISO 10360-13 and VDI/VDE 2634 tell you what to test and how. Neither one tells you whether the organization that ran the test actually has the demonstrated competence to do it correctly. That's what ISO/IEC 17025 accreditation is meant to establish, and it's the part of this chain buyers most often skip.

ISO/IEC 17025 is not a product certification. It's an accreditation of a laboratory's demonstrated competence to perform specific tests or calibrations, granted by a national accreditation body rather than by the lab itself. In China, that body is CNAS (China National Accreditation Service for Conformity Assessment). In the United States it's A2LA, in the United Kingdom it's UKAS, and in Germany it's DAkkS.

Through the Global ACI mutual recognition arrangement, CNAS-accredited results are recognized in more than 100 countries and regions, which is what lets a report from a CNAS-accredited lab stand alongside one from a UKAS or DAkkS-accredited lab in the same supply chain.

That recognition doesn't override a specific customer's or quality system's own acceptance requirements, so it's still worth confirming a given certificate is accepted where it needs to be used.

The detail that trips people up is the scope of accreditation. "ISO 17025 accredited" by itself is not a blanket claim. Every accredited lab has a defined scope, a specific list of standards and methods it has actually been assessed and approved to test against.

That scope also carries calibration and measurement capability (CMC) figures, stating the uncertainty the lab can achieve for each method under defined conditions (A2LA).

A lab can be legitimately ISO/IEC 17025 accredited for, say, torque wrench calibration and have no accreditation at all covering optical 3D scanning. Asking "are you ISO 17025 accredited" gets a yes-or-no answer that tells you almost nothing.

Asking "does your scope of accreditation name ISO 10360-13 or VDI/VDE 2634 for optical 3D CMS" gets you the answer that actually matters.

A Buyer's Checklist for Comparing Two Accuracy Claims

Once two vendors both hand over a number, the comparison comes down to six questions. Asking them in order filters out marketing language quickly.

A vendor that can answer all six with documentation on hand has a number that's comparable to anyone else's tested the same way. A vendor that can only answer one or two has a number that belongs in a negotiation, not in a purchase order.

How SCANTECH (Hangzhou) Co., Ltd. Documents Its Own Numbers

SCANOLOGY, the industrial 3D scanning brand of SCANTECH (Hangzhou) Co., Ltd., publishes accuracy figures for products like the SIMSCAN-S Gen2 (0.015 mm accuracy, 0.015 mm + 0.03 mm/m volumetric accuracy standard, improving to 0.015 mm + 0.012 mm/m with adaptive photogrammetry) and the KSCAN-E (0.020 mm accuracy, 0.015 mm + 0.030 mm/m volumetric accuracy standard).

Both spec sheets carry the same line: performance is evaluated under ISO 10360-13, VDI/VDE 2634 Part 3, and the Chinese national specification JJF 1951, with results produced under ISO/IEC 17025 accreditation (SCANOLOGY).

That accreditation traces to SCANOLOGY's own calibration center, which CNAS first accredited to ISO/IEC 17025:2017 in 2022, giving the lab an accredited CMC under the JJF 1951-2021 specification for optical 3D scanning calibration (PR Newswire).

In mid-2026, CNAS expanded that lab's accreditation, moving its existing ISO 10360-13 and VDI/VDE 2634 coverage for handheld optical scanners from a calibration-only scope into a separate testing scope, and adding accreditation for ISO 10360-8 (CMS with optical distance sensors) and ISO 10360-12 (articulated-arm portable CMMs) for the first time (SCANOLOGY).

That split shows the category distinction in practice. AccuArm, SCANOLOGY's portable arm CMM, is tested per ISO 10360-12 because it's a PCMM, a fundamentally different instrument from an optical area scanner even though both products are part of SCANOLOGY's industrial lineup.

Handheld scanners like SIMSCAN-S Gen2 and KSCAN-E carry ISO 10360-13 and VDI/VDE 2634 Part 3 results because that's the standard written for their measurement principle. Keeping those two certification lines separate on the same accreditation scope is exactly what a buyer should expect from a vendor that sells more than one measurement category.

Frequently Asked Questions

What's the difference between ISO 10360-13 and VDI/VDE 2634? ISO 10360-13 is the 2021 international standard written specifically for optical 3D coordinate measuring systems. VDI/VDE 2634 is the earlier German guideline covering the same category, split into Part 2 for single-view structured-light systems and Part 3 for multi-view systems that stitch scans together. Most current calibration certificates for handheld scanners, including SCANOLOGY's, cite both because the test procedures overlap closely.

Does ISO/IEC 17025 accreditation certify the scanner, or the lab? It certifies the lab's competence to run specific tests, not the product itself. A scanner's spec sheet can say its accuracy was "evaluated under ISO/IEC 17025 accreditation," which means the test was performed by a lab whose scope of accreditation covers that specific measurement, with results traceable through a national accreditation body like CNAS, A2LA, UKAS, or DAkkS.

What does MPE mean on a scanner spec sheet? MPE stands for maximum permissible error, the upper bound a test result must stay under to pass. It's a pass/fail threshold for the specific artifact and conditions tested, not a promise that every measurement on every part will land inside that same value.

How often should a 3D scanner be reverified? ISO 10360-13 and VDI/VDE 2634 don't fix a universal interval; that's typically set by the manufacturer's recommendation, the scanner's usage intensity, and the criticality of the parts it inspects. An annual reverification cycle is common for scanners feeding first article inspection or AS9102 workflows, with shorter intervals after a drop, a repair, or a major optics cleaning.

Is AccuArm's ISO 10360-12 rating the same kind of test as an optical scanner's ISO 10360-13 rating? No. ISO 10360-12 is the ISO 10360 part written for articulated-arm portable CMMs (PCMM), a contact-probing instrument category distinct from optical 3D scanners. AccuArm's 0.016 mm SPAT (MPE) figure on its 2 m S-grade model is tested and reported under ISO 10360-12, not ISO 10360-13, because it measures a different type of hardware under a different standard.

The Short Version

A 3D scanner's accuracy claim is only as strong as the standard behind it and the lab that ran the test. ISO 10360-13 and VDI/VDE 2634 define what gets tested and how a pass/fail threshold is set.

ISO/IEC 17025 accreditation, checked against the lab's actual scope rather than a generic yes-or-no answer, shows whether that lab has the demonstrated competence to back the result up. Before comparing two vendors' numbers side by side, ask for the standard, the test type, the lab, and the scope. Numbers that survive all four questions are the only ones worth putting in a purchase order.