Anna's SolidMuse

3D Scanner Project, Part 3

Yesterday, I spent a bit of time setting up my 3D scanner for some bench testing.  Actually, the workbench was our kitchen table.

I wanted to get everything hooked up to make sure all the hardware and software worked.  Also wanted to get an idea of what issues I may have with the physical set-up to help with designing my 3D scanning studio.

I made a quick trip to Best Buy in the morning to get a couple USB to Micro-USB cables for the cameras.  I also purchased a couple of those mini tripods with the flexible legs.

The picture above was taken this morning before I broke down my set-up.  The scanning studio will not be built in such a bright work area.  To much light for the scanner to work properly.  I did my scan tests late last night when it was dark out.

From what I am gathering from my reading about other people experiences and my own tests, the background and the work piece holders/fixturing should be black.  If they are black, when you are scanning they will not be picked up by the cameras and there will be less work deleting the extraneous data from your meshes.

The extra data also takes up system memory.  It looks like I will need to be careful to release memory from the system frequently with my x32 bit laptop.  It is a Lenovo T61p with 4 gigs of RAM.  Sequentially processing several meshes gave me out of memory errors.  I can see myself purchasing a new x64 bit laptop later this year.  This will eliminate any memory issues with scanning a large mesh.

I have plenty of room in my office at home to set up a nice scan studio.  Actually it will be a very good excuse to get rid of all the junk I have collected in my office.  I have to much old computer hardware and old books in my office, this will give me the motivation to eBay this stuff.

I will also need to work on acquiring some workholders and fixtures.  I can see building a nice workbench out of ATA Approved Shipping Case materialsthat can also be rolled/transported offsite.  With some drawers, etc, inside for storing the equipment when not in use.

I am thinking about going over to the RAPID 2010 Exposition and 3D IMAGING Conference in Anaheim, May 18-20th.  A quick day trip to see the exhibitors will probably give me some great ideas for my project.

Cheers,

Anna 

Gerald Davis, CAD Forecast - Partly Cloudy

Head on over to the SolidWorks Forums and join in on Gerald Davis' post on the future of CAD.

CAD Forecast - partly cloudy

Gerald has spent a considerable amount of time to post his thoughts on the topic.  Very interesting reading.  I hope that it is a seed for some well reasoned and thoughtful discussion on the Future of CAD over on the SolidWorks forum. Be sure to read Gerald's pdf's he has attached to his post as well.

He sums up my feelings very well with his statement:

"I'm resisting change.  I'm demanding change.  I just want the new thing to be the same as the old thing only different."

I am looking forward to the discussion over on the forums.

Cheers,

Anna

SolidWorks World 2010... A Week of Geek

Tomorrow evening I will be flying out to Anaheim to attend SolidWorks World 2010.  It has been two years since I last attended the event.  I am really excited to catch up with old friends and make some new friends in the SolidWorks user community.

It is going to be a very busy week.  Saturday I will be participating in a full day of usability and alpha testing.  Sunday I am lined up to attend a days worth of focus groups.  Hopefully, I will be able to offer some useful information to the folks at SolidWorks.

Sunday evening is packed with the SolidWorks User Group Leader Event that is being organized by Randy Lennox.  There is also the SolidWorks World 2010 Tweetup/Blogger Social.  I plan to make time to attend both events.

Monday is a huge day for me as I will be presenting for the first time in a breakout session.  Devon Sowell and I will be teaming up for a live computer build.  We hope to take some of the fear out of building your own workstation.  Devon will build the computer and I will offer commentary on component selection and the basics you need to know to tackle a workstation build for yourself.

I will also be participating in Wednesday afternoon's breakout session, SolidWorks Clinic: Is The Doctor In?  Mark Biasotti is the lead presenter for this Hands-On session and he has gathered a stellar list of SolidWorks Gurus to help users solve their SolidWorks modeling challenges.  I am still trying to figure out how I managed to be invited to help out.  The list of "doctors" who will be in attendance is fantastic, I am sure I could just listen and learn all kinds of new things myself.

The week will be capped off with a hockey game between the Ducks and Red Wings, Wednesday night.  A group of us, who are flying out on Thursday, are going to gather at the Honda Center for a fun evening.  I am rooting for my hometown Red Wings.

Along with the above there is the welcome reception, general sessions, breakout sessions, partner pavilion, SWUGN Summit, SWUGN Group Leader Meeting/Lunch, the Special Event and the Birds of a Feather sessions.

Looking forward to meeting you at SWW,

Anna

3D Scanner Project, Part 2

Today the cameras and lenses arrived for my 3D Scanner project.  The digital projector has been here for about a week.  The cameras and lenses are really small.  It seemed like they would be a bit bigger when I looked at them online.  The wonders of today's micro-electronics.

For details on what I have purchased for this project, see Part 1 of my 3D Scanner Series.

Machine Vision Cameras and Lenses
Digital Projector

Next step for the project is to get the mounting hardware designed.  I will most likely use a tripod with a custom mounting bar.  I will have the mounting bar fabricated at Auer.

With SolidWorks World 2010 coming up next week, I will need to put the project on hold until I return.

Cheers,

Anna

3D Scanner Project, Part 1

For a while now I have wanted to get a 3D scanner.  We always seem to have a project around the shop where we are reverse engineering a part.  Being able to scan the part, then model would be handy.  Len has recently done several cowling modifications and manufactured a new carbon fiber cowling for the aerobatic race planes that are in our shop over the winter months.  He uses good old fashion model maker techniques when building his molds.  This is pretty typical of the types of projects we are working on.  It would be very nice to be able to add scanned data to our toolbox.

Cowling Mold

Lower Cowling

Zivko Edge 540, New Cowling

Zivko Edge 540, New Cowling Test Flight

A handheld scanner like those made by Creaform and Breuckmann are out of my price range.  The NextEngine scanner is in my price range but does not have the accuracy or the scanning envelope I would like to have.

I have looked at the David Scanner and while very cost effective it just wasn't quite what I was looking for.

Over the holidays I spent some time surfing the internet to see if there where any new 3D scanning solutions that would do what I would like for a reasonable price.  My price target is in the $5K range.

What I found are 3D scanners using structured light scanning techniques.  The interesting thing about these scanners is they are pretty accurate and that you can build your own version of the scanner for a reasonable price.

The software to run the scanner and control the data acquisition is pretty reasonable to purchase and appears to be easy to use.  A laptop computer, a presentation projector and a couple USB machine vision cameras are what you need for hardware.

This was it, I had finally found a system that I could afford.

Over the last few days I have purchased the software and hardware for my system.  It will take a bit for the hardware to arrive.  In a couple weeks I hope to have the scanner up and running, working on some test parts as I learn to use the scanner.

What did I purchase.

For software, what I will be using is purchased from 3D3 Solutions and consists of the data acquisition software called FlexScan3D along with Leios 2009 for processing the mesh data.

I will be hooking it up a BenQ MP522ST 1024 x 768 presentation projector purchased from Newegg.  For cameras I will be using uEye UI-1485LE-M, 5 mega pixel, USB machine vision cameras.  The lenses will be Fujinon HF12.5HA-1B Fixed Focal Length Lenses.  The cameras and lenses are purchased from 1st Vision Inc.

The FlexScan3D software will be install on my Lenovo T61p laptop.  For working with the mesh data I will install the Leios 2009 package on my Core i7 workstation.

I am really looking forward to getting the scanner running and learning new techniques for handling scanned mesh datasets.

Stayed tuned in the coming weeks with more posts on my 3D scanner project.

Cheers,

Anna