Scanning Items.

[PhilJ W]

Is there a 3D printer that can also scan an item? I want to copy and reverse some images. Is there a 3D printer that provides such a facility?

[Arun Sharma]

Not as far as I am aware. 3D scanners effectively fall in to size ranges in that something like a £45k Zeiss-Steinbichler 5MB will scan something rather smaller than the average sugar cube and turn it into a point cloud or STL file that can be 3D printed say 5-7x its original size without loss of resolution. There are similar scanners designed for scanning bits of false teeth and jewellery so that say, dentures can be modified. Similarly there are scanners like the £20k Artec Leo that scan objects from the size of a wastepaper basket to a full-size Land Rover and shrink the point cloud down to whatever scale you might want it . But, scanners and printers are two totally different beasts unlike in the 2D world where ink/toner can duplicate a 2D scan of a 3D object but only print it in 2D.

[monkeysarefun]

If total accuracy is less important, depending on what it is you intend to scan maybe check out photogrammetry packages like 3dflow - they have a free version for personal use.

 

https://www.3dflow.net/3df-zephyr-free/

[PhilJ W]

The items I wish to scan and print are small and highly detailed. I only intend it for my own use and even if I produced them commercially the cost would not be justified.

[monkeysarefun]

Maybe consider using Tinkercad or Sketchup to design the parts  yourself?  Its not a scary process, Tinkercad is taught to 7 year olds here in school and both are cloud-based free software. It is really simple to learn from a couple of hours watching  youtube videos  and can become quite addictive - I've found that often I'm drawing things in Sketchup that I have no intention of completing to the physical model stage, its  just the drawing process is very absorbing and an end in itself, to spin the completed project  around on the screen and see it from all angles!

Edited July 15, 2020 by monkeysarefun

[JimFin]

10 hours ago, PhilJ W said:

The items I wish to scan and print are small and highly detailed.

Just keep in mind the limits of resolution that 3d print can achieve. Its easy to produce a wonderfully detailed  CAD drawing using Tinkercad or others that would not translate well in print. Same with scanned items. Once you have completed the drawing/scan you can load it into a slicer software such as Cura (free) and set it up for a specific printer. For small detailed parts, a resin printer would be best. Slice the object and use the layer view to see each layer in turn. You will be able to see what detail will be printable and what will be lost before actually attempting to print anything. 

[hap]

Has anyone tried to use a XBOX Kinect modified so it can be used on a PC to scan?  I'd be curious if it could scan the more detailed components our hobby demands

[PhilJ W]

10 hours ago, monkeysarefun said:

Maybe consider using Tinkercad or Sketchup to design the parts  yourself?  Its not a scary process, Tinkercad is taught to 7 year olds here in school and both are cloud-based free software. It is really simple to learn from a couple of hours watching  youtube videos  and can become quite addictive - I've found that often I'm drawing things in Sketchup that I have no intention of completing to the physical model stage, its  just the drawing process is very absorbing and an end in itself, to spin the completed project  around on the screen and see it from all angles!

My intention is to convert some diecast cars from left hand drive to right hand drive. Some people have just swapped the steering wheel over but that just looks odd. I was hoping to scan the dashboards of the models, flip the scan to produce a mirror image and 3D print the result. The printing should be straightforward but it seems to get the scan to the required standard requires an expensive machine that cannot be justified on cost grounds. I hope there's someone out there who provides scanning services.

[Quarryscapes]

2 hours ago, PhilJ W said:

My intention is to convert some diecast cars from left hand drive to right hand drive. Some people have just swapped the steering wheel over but that just looks odd. I was hoping to scan the dashboards of the models, flip the scan to produce a mirror image and 3D print the result. The printing should be straightforward but it seems to get the scan to the required standard requires an expensive machine that cannot be justified on cost grounds. I hope there's someone out there who provides scanning services.

 

Plenty of people offer scanning services - I would make Alan Buttler of Modelu my first port of call though.

[DGO]

This is compared to many I've done a very simple task and you can do it using free software

 

Start by taking out the dashboard carefully, you want to take some orthographic pictures of the dash, this is best done with a tripod to hold the camera parallel to the face you are taking a picture of, so start with one looking at the dash, one from each side and one from top and bottom, ideally you also want one looking from the windscreen side towards the steering wheel, you also need a set of vernier calipers to take some measurements, you don't need many, just enough for reference that can go to easily identified points.

 

You bring the pictures into CAD and apply them to workplanes, scale them all so they match and are the right size (using those measurements you took earlier) then you start drawing over distinct areas, extruding and revolving shapes and using boolean operations to form the solid, few hours work and you are done ... ;-) Print using a resin printer to get a good level of detail. It's unlikely to be perfect, but it should look right and only require a little sanding to fit inside the car.

 

Simple .... Cars tend to have fairly simple interiors, I once had to take a model of a cat and modify it to turn it into something that could be used as a figure on one of those table football games, I'm not sure why I think it was a sponsorship or advertising thing  

[PhilJ W]

The problem is that the models are 1/72 scale and the dashboards are only about 20 mm wide and 6-7 mm high but have a lot of tiny details such as dials and switches as well as compound curves.

[monkeysarefun]

If they are fairly generic then Sketchup has a warehouse facility where people upload things they've modelled so that you can download them and incorportate them into your project. Some are better modelled than others (in  accuracy, detail and the ability to 3D print successfully), the advantage is that if you want a RHD version of a LHD model, just flip it inside Sketchup..

 

Eg:

https://3dwarehouse.sketchup.com/search/?q=car dashboard

 

Edited July 16, 2020 by monkeysarefun

[PhilJ W]

Thanks, but I want a dashboard for a specific model or models not a generic one but Sketchup will be useful for flipping the image and producing some extras or even replacement body shells.

[AndyH]

14 hours ago, hap said:

Has anyone tried to use a XBOX Kinect modified so it can be used on a PC to scan?  I'd be curious if it could scan the more detailed components our hobby demands

Hello,

The sensor won’t give you the detail nor accuracy you are looking for to reproduce an item at 7 or 4mm. For use as a low poly count photo-mapped 3D file for use in a game engine it is fine. Or a very rough model you refine a lot using CAD.
It all comes down to software as well as the sensor. How you stitch multiple scans together is important and you can waste a lot of time on this. At work we use £15k Artec EVA scanners, and the software is brilliant, I have also used the high end too, but it all comes down to your software too.

cheers,

Andy

[DGO]

3 hours ago, PhilJ W said:

The problem is that the models are 1/72 scale and the dashboards are only about 20 mm wide and 6-7 mm high but have a lot of tiny details such as dials and switches as well as compound curves.

 

This is not a problem, you take the photos in the way I described and once you have the basic shape of the dash you add the dials etc. though many of them will have to be oversized,a typical speedo for example at 1/72 scale will be just 1.4mm in diameter with a bezel of under 0.1mm across whilst it's easy to draw it in cad anything under .1 mm is unlikely to show up on a 3d print but it might, many resin printers will give you some detail down to 0.015 - 0.028 mm but the human eye has difficulty seeing things that small. You need to do what the toy car makers do and just make them a little bigger than real life with deeper recesses and heavier bezels

[DGO]

Actually  I should rephrase compound curves are not a problem for me but I've been working with 3d Cad for over 30 years, however dashboards are not at the top end of difficult problems to solve at 1/72 scale you don't have to be perfect merely close and then just get out some fine sandpaper for a final smoothing.

 

My other advice is to make it in 2 parts, keep the actual dashboard with its instruments as a separate part so that you don't remove any tiny printed detail by accident

[PhilJ W]

On the models concerned the dash is a one piece moulding including the centre console with a pin to plug into the floor, only the steering wheel is a separate item. I was going to ask ModelU for advice as suggested above at an exhibition they were going to attend but that exhibition was cancelled due to Covid. I have decided to wait until I can consult with them and ask their advice. 

[DGO]

5 hours ago, PhilJ W said:

On the models concerned the dash is a one piece moulding including the centre console with a pin to plug into the floor, only the steering wheel is a separate item. I was going to ask ModelU for advice as suggested above at an exhibition they were going to attend but that exhibition was cancelled due to Covid. I have decided to wait until I can consult with them and ask their advice. 

 

You will almost certainly have to do a few things differently, plastic can be injection moulded in thinner section than resin can be printed for example.

 

Whilst you could easily 3d print a full dash with center console as a single piece by printing in multiple parts you can potentially get a better finish on detail parts, hell if you want really fine detail you may want to look at etched brass bits to add to the 3d printed part 

 

In the end there is only one certainty the more detail you add the more it's going to cost LOL