Laser Scanning

[simso]

Ive been asked a few times regarding laser scanning, where to buy from, what do I need and how much do they cost.

Whats involved in scanning in an image, can the image be then punched out on a cnc router and so forth.

So Im just going to give a brief tutorial and explanation on how they work, from this you can work out if its for you

Ill scan a guitar in and show the process involved

[simso]

So starting with a hamer guitar

[simso]

Laser scanners come in all forms / shapes and size. Cost is reflective to accuracy required.

The other side issue is the more accurate you want the scan the less depth of scan can be achieved.

Example if you wanted to scan a building in, then the accuracy would be about 20ft, and depth of scan is probably 100ft

My laser has a depth of field scan of 40mm, beyond 40mm it cannot see it, the accuracy however is 0.005", which is totally unneccassary for woodwork, however I do on occassion scan aircraft parts in for a local business

[simso]

You need to mount your laser scanner to a machine, for accuracy we retrofitted a cnc router table to hold the scanner head

You could set it up to flat scan or rotary scan, this is all subject to you the end user

[simso]

You also need a computer to capture the images from the laser and control the machine holding the laser head

[simso]

In this image, the laser is sitting over the top of the body on the edge, each of the two inbuilt cameras gives a 45 degree resultant image, as shown top and bottom

You can see the guitar is about 50mm, but the laser and cameras only show half the body depth, this is because I focused the top of the job as the centre point of my image on the screen. This means I have 20mm of focus above the job and 20mm of focus below the job

[simso]

You set depending on how deep the resolution, the amount of passess and overlaps to achieve the end result, each pass is recorded as strip data as shown here

[simso]

At the end of all scanning, you select - stitch, which collates all the individual scan paths, it uses a small amount of overlap from each scan to realign all the strips

This gives you a 3d view of one side of the guitar

[simso]

From the single sided scanned image, you output the file into something you can edit for reverse machining, example an stl file, this stl file you then have to bring into whatever software your using for your cnc router, for me its cut3d, or you could use aspire or cad or solidworks or rhino, the list is endless

[demonx]

Great post.

Hope you realize you just added another thing to my wish list!

[simso]

In the cnc editing program, you import the scanned image in, to then start drawing up

[simso]

Is it worth it, IMO no, is it handy - hell yes...

I went down this path many years back because I contracted some local shops that did 3d scanning to scan some jobs for me, they charged $450 a scan and took approx 6 days to turn the job around.

At that time, I thought it was a ridiculous price, and decided to set myself up, I started with no knowledge of scanning, many dollars later we were setup, but in hind sight 450 a scan was not too bad.

Steve

[simso]

Last but not least, I dont actually end up using the 3d model for all my machining, but I use it as a reference to create vectors for my cnc machine. These vectors I can then tell the machine how deep and how wide I want the cuts at these points, the vectors can also be used for the laser cutter to make an mdf template if you wish to hadn route it out with

And that, is this finished, it can also be done for the opposite side, should you wish

[kiwigeo]

Thats not a laser...THIS is a laser!!

[simso]

That's a scary looking laser

[Kim]

Thanks for posting this Steve.

Not something I'm in a hurry to spend on right now however its really good to get an insight into the process and possibilities. Whilst that level of tech tooling may not be viable for me, I can certainly understand the reasoning behind the investment in a commercial operation such as yours.

Cheers

Kim

[simso]

Thanks Kim,

As I said if I knew, what I know now, about laser scanning and associated costs I wouldn't even think of doing it.

I will never recoup my costs, but in a repair business it is an exceptional tool to have, we can match pick guards bodies necks etc perfectly

I've seen laser scanners as cheap as a couple of k, and there okay but the accuracy is more in cm than mm,