Hello everyone. I just want to start off and say I have no experience with 3D printing but I do have a question about the scanning technology. I work as a quality inspector/technician for a company that makes structural components out of powder metal and I do a lot of time consuming measurement inspections of blue print features. Most of these features get measured on CMM, optical comparators and vision systems which may take hours to measure depending on the complexity of the part. I guess my question is would 3D scanning have the capability to accurately measure all blue print features of structural parts? Thank you.
There are high end scanning solutions that can – but they are in the many tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars, depending on the feature size and accuracy you are looking for, and require a high-end PC and software tools as well. See, for example, the Leica Nova series.
@Groove_Shuffler , @Joseph_Chiu is correct about the expense. It does vary by application though. You could check out Geomagic Verify. http://www.geomagic.com/en/products-landing-pages/geomagicverify
Thanks Joseph for the info. I realize they are expensive, but our high volume of inspections and man hours saved may justify the cost. Also our design engineers and tool design shop could benefit with this technology.
Thanks Andrew for the link. I will check it out and maybe share it with some of the higher ups at work.
If a scanner system can’t give you the degree of certainty you need it might still be able to sort out which do or do not need checking by better methods.
@Groove_Shuffler ,one more you can look at is the Artec scanners. The Eva is for larger objects and the Spider is for smaller objects with extreme detail and accuracy. http://www.artec3d.com/