A Laser Scanning Methodology for 3D Printing

Abstract

Replicating a real-world object seems to be an impossible task which can only be happened in science fiction movies. As three-dimensional, known as 3D, printing technique becomes more popular and mature nowadays, people now print a three dimensional object with 3D printing machine. The task of making replica of a real object is foreseeable. 3D scanner, a device digitizing real object, plays an important role as a complementary good for replicating real objects. In this project, the core methodology is using the projection of laser light on analysis the three-dimensional data of targeted objects. The methodology first performs the image acquisition and image analysis that followed. Image acquisition refers to capturing a series of images of different rotational angles with a line laser, which projects a line stripe on the target object. Image analysis is performed by acquiring two-dimensional data from images and combining them as a set of three-dimensional data which is called point clouds. Surface reconstruction is applied to point clouds at the last stage. The point clouds are being saved as a printable file format which can further be used for 3D printing.