Check this out! Louis-Philippe Gendron, Computer Graphics Artist at Creaform, has produced a short animated film featuring a full-size 3D scan model of the Inukshuk that served as inspiration to the creator of the logo for the 2010 Olympic Winter Games in Vancouver.
This reproduction of an Inuit landmark, which is quite impressive (18 ft. or 6 meters tall) , was scanned on site last December. This is a good example of how real-life objects can be easily and perfectly “virtualized” and used in a wide variety of multimedia productions.
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- Tags: 3D scanning, Inukshuk, Vancouver 2010
Science fiction of 3D laser scanning
By: Louis Gagné
In: 3D Scanning Projects| Design and Engineering| Metrology and Inspection| Reverse engineering
19 Feb 2010
ACCURACY AND RESOLUTION IMPROVEMENT
When we think of future laser scanning, first thing that comes in mind is an accuracy and resolution improvement. But this is not the big deal…
First parameters to consider are from an engineering point of view and are limited by price and engineering capabilities. Structural rigidity of the scanner itself has virtually no limitations if we consider new materials (ceramics) and new geometries (thermo stablility, stiffness etc). Cameras are getting more and more pixels and optics gets very high quality (price will surely lower with time).
When talking about accuracy the real problem comes from physics limitations. This is what will ultimately stop accuracy improvement. Since surface geometry is acquire from laser light, first physical limitation to consider is wavelength of laser. Actually there is a physic theorem that states it is impossible to observe details smaller than wavelength used. Right now lasers used in 3D scanning are all visible light (between 400 and 700 nm). Maybe future laser scanners will use shorter wavelength such as UV?
Another limitation comes from light interaction with matter. When light passes close to a sharp edge it is diffracted making the laser line to split into diffraction patterns. Light is not always reflected on the first layer of atoms of the material (what is the physical boundary between an object and space surrounding it anyway?). These considerations make it really hard to estimate the maximum accuracy achievable. Moreover when entering the physical considerations, it seems that material composition could affect precision itself.
FORESEEN IMPROVEMENTS FOR 3D LASER SCANNING
For 3D scanning used in Reverse Engineering (RE) and Inspection, we can foresee that the real next major evolution step will be live features recognition. Intelligent software improvement would permit to recognize, in real time, the actual geometry that is scanned. This could permit automatic reconstruction for RE, automatic alignment with CAD when inspecting and moreover it could eliminate needs for targeting! Imagine that the software recognize the parts it is scanning as a solid object: it would make it possible for the software to know where measurement is actually being taken on the part. This is truly artificial intelligence, but new development in this area (3D object reconstruction from pictures) forecast real developments right on the corner.
Who will be first to release such technology?
Creaform’s acquired long range scanner
By: Louis Gagné
In: 3D Hardware| 3D Scanning Projects| Metrology and Inspection
10 Feb 2010
Boats fabrication has always been very traditional using well established processes and has always been reluctant and slow to incorporate new technologies. However we recently see a bloom of interest from different shipyards and boat architecture offices.
TOOLS
Leica C10 long range scanner combine with Handyscan 3D Technology makes the perfect tool for boat reverse engineering, repairs, modifications and more… We recently developed a simple process that now permits to import data from scanners to a ShipConstructor compatible file format.
PROCESS
1. Scan – Long range scanning is used to acquire general outlines at large scale. One scan can get data as far as 300 meters! Handyscan 3D is used to acquire detailed in specific areas with higher accuracy
2. Post treatment – Long range scanners output point clouds that must be converted into an .stl. Handyscan 3D technology output an stl right away, a valuable feature that saves time.
3. Cross sectioning – Once alignment of scans from long range and Handyscan 3D is performed using references it is then possible to slice stl data into cross sections. Reverse Engineering with help of NavWare based in Old Quebec City, we demonstrated Ship Constructor allow importing .dwg, .iges or .step cross sections and use them as references or sketches to create CAD data. Number and positions of different cross sections can be modified and new cross sections can be generated at any time during the reverse engineering process.
Moreover unique capability for Creaform to merge Handyscan 3D data to long range scanner point cloud can provide a solution to any projects involving complex geometry.
The ”see-trough” goggles a.k.a. the millimetre wave scanner
By: François Leclerc
In: Business
3 Feb 2010Who would have thought that these mythical glasses would ever actually come to
life?
The true Simpsons fans like I will of course remember Bart bearing in mind ordering a pair of “X-Ray goggles” that let you see trough clothes before ending his choice on a spy cam in season 1 episode 10 of the show aired in 1990. What was considered a sci-fi joke years ago is now plain reality.
Already implemented into several airports in the US for security purposes, the millimetre wave scann
ers allow detecting non metallic weapons and explosives devices by modeling people in 3D without their clothes. Although this specific application raises privacy concerns, I find this technology very impressive as it opens a brand new market to the world of 3D.
I just can’t wait to find out what the next gadget to be brought to life will be; I got my money on the time traveling DeLorean!
Last week, computer giant Hewlett-Packard has announced a partnership with the 3D printer manufacturer Stratasys. Under this agreement, Stratasys will develop and manufacture for HP an exclusive line of 3D printers based on Stratasys’ [...] technology. This HP-branded 3D printer will be available later this year.
Dimension's uPrint
This means that someone in HP thought that the 3D printing technology is getting ready for mainstream, or as mainstream as you can get with a printer worth 15 000$…! This will certainly open up new markets in two ways.
- Such a large player will increase awareness of 3D printing in new markets which somehow ignored what 3D printing could do for them. More people will be introduced to 3D printing and some of them might think of new application in their day-to-day job.
- The increased competition will foster innovation in the market, thus driving the prices down and the capacities of the 3d printers up. The same phenomenon was seen in the internet browser market; when Internet Explorer managed to win against Netscape, its development slowed which picked up only when Firefox, Opera and Chrome started to show up.
On my side, I see it in a larger scope, which somehow is in the same line of thought as my previous post. 3D technologies, not strictly 3D printing, has begun to rise and is here to stay. As people get involved with such technologies, the applications developed will increase and prove their worth. As manufacturers of such tools, it is of our duty to lead this trend and shine through innovation, passion and determination.
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- Tags: 3d printing, HP, Stratasys
Creaform’s new tool for human body scanning!
By: Daniel Brown
In: 3D Technologies| Business
20 Jan 2010What a great news! Creaform is confirming today the acquisition of InSpeck: a company that manufactures and markets 3D scanning system specialized in human-body scanning. This will enlarge (and complement) our set of tools in order to satisfy the needs of our multimedia customers (and others like medical, plastic surgery…). Concretely, this will allow Creaform to offer a scanner perfectly suited to digitize all parts of the human body: head, hands, half-body and full body scans. No invasive techniques are used to acquire the data (you don’t have to touch the person) and the scan is done in seconds!
This could be really useful for scanning actors’ faces for movies and video games (since they don’t want to spend the whole day with the 3D artists…). Here are some examples from the digitalization of baseball players:
You’ve all heard the buzz over Avatar over the Holidays for a number of reasons, the sheer budget of the film being one. However, what’s directly interesting us is the use of 3D and what it means to us in this business.
Going 3D in Avatar
In the meantime, surfing on the same wave, is what happened at CES 2010. For those who have not been following the Consumer Electronic Show, we can say that 2010 was either the year of the Slate or the Year of the 3D HDTV.
At the same time, we’ve seen 3d camcorders, 3d blu-ray players and 3d gaming slowly coming up. That’s a lot of 3d for one single person!
The amount of consumer products integrating 3D in one form or another clearly shows that the manufacturers are ready to sell 3D technologies. As manufacturers of 3D scanning devices, we can only be excited with the new perspectives that these devices bring to the table. On our side, we have seen that 3D technologies definitely has a place in the industrial world,the next logical step is that the general public to step in this third dimension. It may take a while, but I definitely think that we will somehow get to that.
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- Tags: 3D HDTV, avatar, CES
Remember in september when we scanned the HTT plethore.
They published a video on youtube, have a look.
Everybody knows I’ve been a fan of the iPhone from the very beginning. However, I was only able to treat myself with “the marvel” a few short months ago… Why did I wait so long? It would probably be inappropriate to discuss this issue here since it involves our president… In all honesty, my desire to possess the supreme Smartphone was initially motivated somewhat more by the cool & fun factors than by my potential gain in productivity (although it has provided that also J).
Now, after having seen the iPhone work in conjunction with the VIUscan to deliver a really attractive and value-added Augmented Reality application, I’m speechless!
This is pure breakthrough! The VIUscan creates 3D representations of valuable artifacts that have been taken out of their original location for preservation purposes, and the University of Oslo and the iPhone work together to allow these objects to be “seen” as they were at their original location! Pure Wow.
See for yourself the demonstration of a Mobile Augmented Reality application for the iPhone, developed in the INVENTIO-project (University of Oslo), in cooperation with Memention AB.
The Wonderful World of Packaging Design in 3D
By: Émilie Girard-Tremblay
9 Dec 2009After having read an article in the French cad.magazine, I felt like discussing the subject. I feel the packaging industry is very innovative and keeps pushing back limits to pique the interest of everyone, and particularly of us, consumers!
Not only do they push back the limits of aesthetics, but they also push back the limits of 
mechanics.
Among other things, they keep developing:
_ Packaging to deliver the exact dose; NO waste!
_ Packaging in easily stackable shapes to make handling and warehousing easier
_ Packaging using less material in order to respect the environment and reduce shipping costs; that’s killing two birds with one stone!
Since businesses keep looking for ways to improve their packaging, many companies developing computer-assisted design software have seen the opportunity and developed software catering to this need; Dassault Systèmes is one of them. Their CPG software (Consumer Packaged Goods) allows for instance to take professionals working in 
this sector from design to client experience through simulation. Isn’t that great?
Simulation could be addressed in greater depth in a coming post; that would be very interesting.
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- Tags: 3D scanner, Design, Packaging
About this blog
This blog is definitely about innovation - about new technologies, new methodologies, new projects and new outcomes.
Through this blog, we will reach to the whole Creaform community and share info about the 3D world – our world.
Categories
- 3D Scanning Projects (7)
- 3D Technologies (14)
- 3D Hardware (5)
- 3D Software (2)
- Business (6)
- Design and Engineering (4)
- Metrology and Inspection (5)
- Reverse engineering (1)
- Tips and Tricks (2)
- Louis Gagné: Mr Pierre-Charles Drapeau, Director Shipbuilding Software Services for Navware Canada Inc. mentionne [...]
- Kamal Kant: i need see trough goggles. How i can get it ? [...]
- Patrice Parent: Mr. Sharma, I assume you are one of our customers and already using one of our scanners? With [...]
- Vishal Sharma: Hi, I have got a project for scanning the rear & Front FRp panels of a Luxury Coach.I have sc [...]
- Julien Marchand: It works well, I have my first buildings accepted today in Google Earth. With the Google Earth p [...]
- The Winter Olympics, the Creaform way!
- Science fiction of 3D laser scanning
- Creaform’s acquired long range scanner
- The ”see-trough” goggles a.k.a. the millimetre wave scanner
- HP, Stratasys and what it means for 3d
- Creaform’s new tool for human body scanning!
- 3D is ready to take center stage
- Supercar: follow-up!
- Has the Perfect Phone Just Gotten Better?
- The Wonderful World of Packaging Design in 3D