High accuracy 3d scanning

Last week we visited the Beckman Institute at the U of I. This institute has one of the best 3d scanners. A Steinbichler L3D. A powerful device! It works with a blue LED light and a single camera. You can either move the scanner around the object you are scanning, or place the object on a flexible platform that is connected to the scanner. The platform will then move as the scanner needs it. The scanner comes with his own software.

At first we thought we could scan multiple objects in one hour. But it turned out that this scanner needs his time. And the time of an expert who knows how to operate hard- and software.

Travis was the expert at Beckman. As the scan did not work out as he expected it, he decided to keep the item for another day we wanted him to scan.


The second scanner at Beckman was not that accurate as the Steinbichler. One can say, the scan was not successful. Take a look at the pictures below to get what I mean.

 

One week later, Travis visited us at the MakerLab. He finished the scan of our object. However, the raw scan data can not be used for CAD or 3D printing. Together with Travis we made our first steps in Geomagic. A software that is for preparing scan-data for CAD or 3d printing. In short: First we needed to clean the object. Eliminate noise. There are some automatic functions that could help a lot. Next we drew faces on the object. Finally, we tried to split the object into basic objects like circles or cylinders, to export them to a CAD software.

All in all, I think this software was a bit to powerful for us to learn in such a short time.

One thought on “High accuracy 3d scanning

Leave a Reply