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successfully provided state-of-the-art independent
gas analysis services such as ppb and ppt level
volatile metal impurities in specialty gases, trace
impurities in hard to manage samples such as
metal hydrides, complex mixtures and corrosive
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impurity analyses for almost three decades.
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3-D scanning advances will continue to follow camera advances: connection and communication standards, as well as optical component
stability/quality. For electronics, there’s a requirement for smaller sensor
FOVs and a driving requirement for speed. The ability to inspect small
parts at a high speed is a continued trend.
In the past three years there’s been a trend in increasing speed, especially with handheld 3-D scanners. “The typical speed increased from a few
thousand points per second to hundreds of thousand points,” says Brown.
“This improvement was reached in part through the use of higher-performance imagers, but most of the increase comes using more complex
structured laser or white light patterns that cover the entire field of view
of the scanner instead of only using a single laser trace.” In addition to
advances in pattern projection technologies, new light coding techniques
were developed to enable spatial decoding of the pattern, which is the
basis of single-frame full-field 3-D imaging. Advances in high-speed
image processing, as well as in real-time surface reconstruction and visualization, were also key in the development of highly portable and accurate
handheld 3-D scanners, according to Brown.
Reducing costs, speeding up product development
3-D scanners provide complete measurement information of objects, in
the fastest way possible. It saves considerable time when modeling existing
objects in CAD software. And 3-D scanning provides R&D/product development teams with both time and cost reduction when designing, enhancing and testing products.
In the manufacturing space, 3-D scanning is a critical component
in inspection and quality control systems. Detecting errors in part production early is critical. The further along a bad part moves down the
production chain, the higher is the chance that part may cause further
damage downstream and incur cost increases. “Having a 3-D sensor that
can ‘see’ what’s happening, and trigger an appropriate remedy quickly, is a
key cost-saving benefit,” says Thomas Tong, global sales manager of HDI
products at LMI Technologies.
However, not only do 3-D scanners offer cost-saving benefits to the
manufacturing industry, but they also offer speed in product development. 3-D scanners have a wide adoption in the product design and CAD
desktop space. The ability to capture real-world objects in the digital
domain and then create new CAD drawings based on existing information is significantly faster than creating CAD by hand. “Often it’s a critical
way to design parts that will be sure to physically match or interface with
existing parts,” says Tong.
3-D scanning technologies streamline the 3-D modeling process,
allowing designers and engineers to considerably reduce time-to-market.
Software growth for 3-D scanning technology
While physical 3-D scanners are well understood, the processing of 3-D
scan data is still “a black art” or unsolved problem for many industries,
according to Tong. More industry-specific packages for processing and
understanding 3-D scan data are hitting the market. From simple things
like finding the size of a drill hole to finding and analyzing metal stampings, manufacturers are seeing an ever-expanding software need to understand what gets captured by 3-D scanners.
As the scope of 3-D scanning technologies become wider, dedicated
applications requiring dedicated software are starting to appear. “For
instance, Pipecheck, a software program especially made to analyze pipeline
external damages due to corrosion, was key to implement 3-D scanning
technology into that market,” says Creaform’s Brown. Having the right dedicated software to perform integrity assessment analysis is what successfully
drove the HandySCAN 3D in the oil and gas industry. “A similar phenomenon is happening with our OEM partners in the health care equipment
industry,” says Brown.
Furthermore, 3-D scanning technologies and CAD software are
attempting to cover a user’s entire workflow when it comes to creating
CAD models from existing objects. In general, CAD software is integrating 3-D scan data processing functionalities, and 3-D scanning software
is integrating more CAD functionalities. “At Creaform we offer a simple,
yet powerful 3-D scan processing software module that is fully integrated
with our 3-D scanners that delivers only the features necessary to complement our customer’s CAD software,” says Brown.
The future
In the past, the core questions were scanning accuracy and scanning speed.
As technology moves ahead, manufacturers see more choices along different paths such as smart sensors, embedded modules and scanner mobility.
Users will see more real-time capture of scan data, so they don’t only get
complete data sets, but also see more 3-D scan data captured as video.
Advancements in portability, ease of use, accuracy, resolution and
speed, as well as more accessible 3-D scanning solutions for “prosumers”
and more integration between hardware and software will also be seen in
the near future.
—Lindsay Hock
