Dimensioner is a tool to measure volume and dimensions of an object, most particularly of parcels and pallets. Companies that provide or acquire logistic services use dimensioners to calculate the shipping charge of freights based on their dimensions. Dimensioners are usually accompanied by scales in order to measure the weights of freights.

Courier, Express and Parcel (CEP) companies, postal companies, LTL carriers, e-commerce and retail companies employ dimensioners in their warehouses.

In recent years, all freight carriers switched to a pricing policy that takes freights' dimensions into consideration in addition to their weights. Thus, having a systematic approach to measure all freights has become a very important requirement increasing the awareness about dimensioners.

Dimensioners are used since the last 35 years and different technologies are employed in the dimensioning products. They can be categorized into 4 generations depending on their base technology.

Generation	Technology	Remarks
1st	Ultrasonic or Infrared Point distance measurement	Objects must be aligned to the corner. Not possible to measure irregular objects.
2nd	Lasers	Accurate but costly. Objects must be in motion. Difficult deployment. Black objects cause problems.
3rd	3D Cameras	Affordable and flexible. Not as accurate as laser-based dimensioners.
4th	3D Cameras + Machine Learning	Accurate, fast, simple-to-deploy and affordable.

Dimensioners can also be grouped into two types: static and dynamic. Static dimensioners require that objects are stationary during the measurement. They are compact, easy-to-use and affordable compared to dynamic dimensioning solutions. Nevertheless, dynamic dimensioners are fast and can process thousands of freights per hour as required by certain applications.

Selection between a static or dynamic dimensioner should start with finding an answer to the following question: how many freights (parcels or pallets) must be measured in a day? If the number is around 100-300 freights per measurement station, then the static dimensioning is the way to go; otherwise, a dynamic dimensioning system should be used.

To find out more about BeeVision dimensioning products, please take a look at this page.