1. Spraying the form
Before the form is laser scanned, it is sprayed with a flaw finder spray which makes it non-reflective and enables the scanner to gather accurate data from the form.
2. Laser Scanning
The 3D laser scanning of the model generates point cloud data that accurately forms a 3D representation of the model electronically. The laser is able to capture about one thousand points per second and depending on the size of the model, the total number of point cloud data can range from hundreds of thousands of points to millions of points.
This is the staring point of our CAD design and subsequently, the Finite Element Analysis.
The scan method that is employed to reproduce the object depends highly on the scale of the model. In this case a Faro Laser Scanner was used.
Point Cloud
Once the scanned data has been generated, the 3D point cloud data can then be exported into Geomagic Studio (a reverse engineering software) where it is compared with the original physical model and Initial Graphic Exchange Software (IGES) data is generated.
3. Rhino
The data is then imported into Rhino (NURBS surface modeling software.) The Rhino software allows the *.iges data to be refined (very important) and allows the establishment of primary structural curves and nodes. Once it has been imported the file has to be oriented into the desired position and size by rotation and/or scaling.
