3D Scanner

To compliment our 3D printer that we are creating it would be great if we had our very own affordable and accurate 3D scanner. This would allow us to only model and print objects but also replicate objects we already have.

Method

To get us started we can build a rotational base that we'll place the scanable object on so it can rotate slowly. We'll acquire a web cam and laser level. And then install the David 3D scanner software to do a scan of a small object.

Then we'll move towards commercial methods of doing multi-scans at the same time and combine the results after processing to ensure that we have the least amount of noise possible.

Budget

Goal is to have the ultimate cost for this project to be less than commercially available products. The lowest that I've found was:

NextEngine - $2,995

Links

Commercial Models

NextEngine - https://www.nextengine.com/indexSecure.htm

Current News

http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2010/03/letters_from_the_fab_academy_part_4.html

Instructables

http://www.instructables.com/id/3-D-Laser-Scanner/
http://www.instructables.com/id/Make-your-own-3d-scanner/
http://www.instructables.com/id/Structured-Light-3D-Scanning/
http://www.instructables.com/id/David-3D-scanner/

Software

A point cloud can be brought into MeshLab as a PLY file, a simple ASCII format for 3D object description:
http://meshlab.sourceforge.net/

From here you can merge scans together. The merging process is sometimes easier if you mark certain areas of the object with sharpy so you can align the dots from different scans.

Videos

systm Covered Cheap 3D Scanning in this Episode:
http://revision3.com/systm/laserscan