3D Scanner Applications
Automotive Design
More and more manufacturers and various workshops for tuning and modification of cars/motorcycles use 3D scanners to ensure better quality and speed up the process of developing new or modified parts, as well as to increase the accuracy and speed of measurements during production control. Today, both large manufacturing enterprises and small companies engaged in tuning and repair of equipment feel the need to digitize their products.
Scanning with a handheld 3D scanner allows you to quickly obtain a highly detailed and accurate three-dimensional model of an object, as well as solve such problems as: accelerating the design process of various units and assemblies, modeling in a CAD/CAM environment, creating full copies of products and equipment, developing new products and many other tasks.
Media, Design, Art, Advertising
In the field of design, modeling and advertising, the use of the 3D scanner opens up new possibilities for creativity, because it becomes possible to quickly obtain a 3D model of a hand-made design layout or other advertising product of any complexity. The 3D scanner can be used in the production of clothing and footwear, original souvenir and advertising products, and the design of exhibition stands.
The gaming industry is opening up opportunities to create digital models of characters or objects for video games and animation. Transferring a real object as a 3D model to a computer can be done in a few minutes.
The possibilities of using a 3D scanner in advertising and design are so great that they are limited only by the developer’s imagination.
Architecture
Handheld 3D scanners can be used to digitize museum exhibits and historical treasures, art objects and cultural heritage.
Scanning helps to preserve information about these objects for future generations. Digitization of ancient monuments or models, elements of buildings subject to restoration. Scaling – having a scan of a monument, you can, for example, produce its copies in miniature.
A 3D scanner will also be useful in archaeological tasks, as well as forensic examination, where the opportunity to study an object in detail can be obtained without touching it with your hands.
Reverse Engineering
A process in which 3D scanners are used to obtain a 3D model of an existing object for the purpose of its reproduction or various modifications. As well as for the development of new elements that ideally match the shapes and dimensions of existing elements. Characterized by the creation of a mathematical model or drawings based on an existing physical sample. A physical object is scanned, then a polygonal 3D model is formed from the point cloud, according to which the designer creates a CAD model for reproduction, creation of design documentation and other purposes.
Reverse engineering is a mandatory attribute for bringing order to the range of products used at an enterprise, since it often helps to resolve the issue of both the lack of drawings and design documentation, and the analysis of the assembly model of the product.
One of the main tasks of reverse engineering using 3D scanner data is import substitution. A short period of time is enough to digitize a foreign product entirely or only part of it, in order to ensure timely replacement of this component, producing it at domestic facilities and, even better, with our own resources. This allows achieving independence of the enterprise, and also, in case of modification of the original product, to increase its service life and modernize it for our own original “new” development.
Industry and Manufacturing
3D scanners are also widely used in various industries: quality control, reverse engineering, design. Many companies have implemented the technology so tightly into production that they see no alternative. A 3D scanner allows for the entire cycle of part analysis: diameters, distances between holes, roundings, angles, control of allowances for blanks, cast products; determination of shifts of mold halves and much more.
Wear control of workshop and production equipment can be carried out directly near the object itself, requiring digitalization into a 3D model for detailed surface analysis.
A 3D scanner is also used for resource testing, where it is extremely important not to predict wear areas and emergency sections of products, but to look at the entire accessible surface as a whole, having an accurate and detailed 3D model at your disposal.
Quality Control
Industrial and handheld 3D scanners are used to conduct contactless inspection of products. For measurements and subsequent comparison of scans with CAD models, creation of deviation reports, quality control of manufactured products, incoming inspection and outgoing inspection at enterprises.
If earlier resources allowed manual inspection of one volume of own or contract products, then with a 3D scanner many companies were able to increase the number of inspections 10-fold or more, which significantly affected the quality, brought profit and user trust.
3D scanners are also used in medicine, education and science, the oil and gas industry, forensics and other industries.