It was anticipated early on in the NIST program for Integrated Design, NDE and Manufacturing at Iowa State University that it would be desirable to have a scanning system that could accommodate the needs of scan plan research and development. To that end a Panametrics scanning system, a research version of the ARGUS (Advanced Robotic Gantry Ultrasonic Systems) class dual bridge, dual manipulator gantry systems for high speed contour scanning of large components up to 1.5 meters, was purchased. During 1996, advanced contour scanning software, designed for the ARGUS scanning system was purchased, providing a complete and practical approach to inspecting curved parts which cannot be inspected with rectilinear scanning methods. Parts with complex curvature may be scanned with a one or two probes in a pulse-echo scenario or by through transmission.