I promised videos of the printers. But, as Robert Burns wrote, "The best laid schemes o’ Mice an’ Men / Gang aft agley." (Also, ADHD is a thing.) Instead, I shall direct the spotlight to Gina Gibson and her Golden Donkey. This past summer, Gina stopped by to see if I could help scan a small, metal donkey figure. At the time, the equipment and attempt just didn't work out. Now, however, we have acquired two new (and significantly better!) 3D scanners, one of which Gina and I tested earlier this week. This week's featured tech, therefore, shall be the Afinia EinScan-SP.
This 3D scanner boasts a scan accuracy of ≤0.05mm. Use is considerably straight-forward and user friendly, with guided calibration for the attached turntable. To scan an item, you place it on the turntable and start a scan in the PC software. The table will rotate at set increments, pausing to allow the cameras to capture image data. After a full rotation, you can review the captured data in the software and--much like the preview functions in traditional document scanning--determine if you want to keep the result or re-scan. This process is repeated, turning the object to lay at different sides each rotation, until the desired level of detail is achieved. The images below of the scan data we captured of Gina's Golden Donkey took about 5 or 6 scans. The lengthiest part of the process was a tie between waiting for the computer to finish rendering the final model and waiting for me to stop prattling about the scanner.
 |
 |
| 3D rendering of the scanned donkey figure, approximately 7 inches long. | |
 |
| The eye of this figure is only 8.39mm. |
0 Comments.