Best Uses of 3D Scanning and Its Applications

One of the most common 3d scanning applications for scanners and software is quality control. In today’s highly competitive markets where each company is striving to produce the most accurate parts in the fastest amount of time, quality control is of the utmost importance. High-quality manufacturing processes can distinguish a business from its competitors, and this makes precise, accurate, and repeatable quality control processes a vital part of any manufacturing plan. 3D scanning software can help firms improve the quality and speed of their inspections by creating detailed 3D models of manufactured parts and offering workflows optimized for specific industries. Each part can be scanned and the digital model can be evaluated to make sure every area on the part is within the specified tolerances.

ZEISS INSPECT software enables users to inspect CAD (computer-aided design) files, 2D drawings, and multiple parts. Additionally, the inspection software offers CMM (coordinate measuring machine) style reports and color maps that enable quality engineers to immediately identify parts that are outside of specified tolerances.

Prototyping and 3D printing is another frequent use case for 3D scanning software. 3D scanners enable you to take a physical product, scan it into a digital format (e.g. the STL file format), and work with the digitized model to create prototypes that are then printed by 3D printers. The high level of precision enabled by quality 3D scanners significantly streamline this process because increasing the granularity of scan data greatly reduces the manual time required to create a solid model.

A very common challenge in the world of engineering and product design is reverse engineering a physical product for which you do not have a CAD file. Using a 3D scanner that will capture the complex geometric characteristics of a given part is a great way to develop a CAD file when one is not available. Creating or sourcing high quality CAD files early on in the reverse engineering process can greatly improve the results of the project by minimizing wasted time and guesswork based on inaccurate data. Time and time again ZEISS customers have found that the ATOS scanner’s rapid and easy workflow has minimized CAD creation time and led to more successful reverse engineering projects.

CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics) simulation is commonly used for flight and wind tunnel testing. FEA (Finite Element Analysis) is often leveraged to predict how a given part or product will react when exposed to forces like heat, fluid, vibration, etc. As these simulations and analyses are used to simulate conditions for industries like aerospace where safety is of the utmost importance, precise digital models are a must, and this is where 3D scanners and the associated scanning software comes in. The more accurate the 3D models, the more reliable the simulations.