From an outsider’s perspective, laser scanning can look a bit magical. It captures 3 dimensional details from a real-world object, massive infrastructures, or the environment through a beam of a laser. Isn’t that fascinating? It may look magical, but it takes a lot of work on the inside.
A line of laser light is used in 3D laser scanning, a non-contact, non-destructive technology, to digitally capture the shape of real-world items. “Point clouds” of data are produced from an object’s surface by 3D laser scanners. In other words, 3D laser scanning is a tool for accurately transferring the size, shape, and dimensions of a physical thing into a digital, three-dimensional representation. Cool, right?
To efficiently produce point clouds with a high degree of accuracy, 3D laser scanners measure intricate details and record free-form shapes. When measuring and inspecting curved surfaces and complex structures that require enormous amounts of data for an accurate description, 3D laser scanning is the best option.
Laser scanning can be used in a variety of fields and offers a great advantage; from forensics and archaeology to building and civil engineering. More and more industries are utilising laser scanning as the technology gets lighter, more cost efficient, and compact.
Laser scanners have developed into a significant piece of equipment for experts involved in product design and development, capturing images of everything from tiny mechanical parts to enormous industrial products. Reverse engineering, formerly a time-consuming process that could take days of disassembly, precise manual measurements, and the laborious process of examining each part of a product, can now be completed in a matter of minutes for a CAD surface model or a matter of hours for a parametric CAD model thanks to laser scanning. The scanners are used to produce precise digital blueprints of broken or deformed parts that require redesign but don’t have access to CAD data. Small and medium-sized object inspection is ideal for portable laser scanners with embedded processors, whereas bigger object inspection is ideal for medium- and long-range scanners. Instant CAD model generation frees up hours or even days of work, allowing R&D teams to focus on the real product improvement.
Quality inspection is a crucial step in the manufacturing process and any other industry that has been altered by laser scanners. Quality inspection procedures, which were formerly dominated by manual, contact-based measuring approaches, may now be completed much more quickly, safely, correctly, and with a far larger amount of measurable data. This leads to fewer testing inefficiencies and quicker product delivery to the customer. Laser scanners can take millions of measurements for a variety of objects with a wide range of geometrical complexities in a fraction of the time and without making any physical contact with the object.
The 3D capture of buildings and complete construction sites is another common use for long and medium-range terrestrial laser scanners, especially among architects and construction experts. With the use of laser scanning surveying, facility owners or project managers for building projects may swiftly produce precise documentation and 3D visualisations of existing structures and their conditions. They are also used to monitor the construction process, assess the quality of freshly completed projects, and compare the results with the original concept. In addition to reducing the time and expense associated with manual measurements, laser scanners also improve safety when operating in hazardous environments. Laser 3D scanners can be used to create permanent, rich 3D data that can be used for remodelling or new construction projects over the whole duration of the structure.
