How to print from a scan

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gjohnson
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How to print from a scan

Post by gjohnson »

Please forgive the newbie question, but how do you go from a scan to a 3D print? I know you need a "water tight" mesh. I have a Faro Focus X330. We export a pts file to Rhino for the cad work and also have Artec Studio. I have 3DS Max 2014 but am not very experienced with it. I'd like a solution that did not involve new, expensive software. I put a snip below of what we'ere trying to print - I know it needs some work.
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Re: How to print from a scan

Post by WWilford »

Hello Gary,

What type of printer do you want to use?

In my opinion getting a good mesh from that file will be extremely difficult if you want to retain the minute detail. There will be lots of sharp angles which will create intersecting triangles and many holes. You can try to mesh it as one body and fill in the holes for the missing windows, etc. Then depending upon the software you are using and the printer material costs you could shell the solid object so that it does not use as much material to print the object. Make sure to leave a drain hole after you shell it for the unused print media to escape. I haven't used any meshing software other than Geomagic but even a with a powerful meshing software I would give yourself a few days worth of time to clean up that file for 3D printing at a detailed level.

I have created a few meshes from the Focus 3D. I would be interested to see how the reduced noise of the X330 helps with the meshing in Geomagic. I usually do quite a bit of noise reduction there before starting the meshing process.
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Re: How to print from a scan

Post by gjohnson »

Still looking. I have about a year before I buy one. I'm open to suggestions. As for size, I'd like at least something like Makerbots' one which is 9x8x6 inches. Budget not >$5000.
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Re: How to print from a scan

Post by 3DForensics »

Hi Gary,

You can try CloudCompare and use their Poisson reconstruction. This will create a water tight mesh for you. However, your point cloud is a little difficult because of some "open spaces" So, you need to decide how to best close your point cloud to make a water tight mesh.

Also, I would run some filters like decimation and a statistical outlier removal to get rid of any stray points.

Not an easy first project, but I think with a bit of hard work, it's possible.

Cheers,

Eugene
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Re: How to print from a scan

Post by tbwester »

Greg,
I sent you an email - not sure if it went to spam.

IMO you'd be better off outsourcing the printing/processing since you don't already have all the software you'll need.

Its fine if you want to figure out another way to do it, or if you just want to do it yourself. I would be happy to explain our process and all that I know.

thad
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Re: How to print from a scan

Post by tbwester »

3DForensics wrote:Hi Gary,

You can try CloudCompare and use their Poisson reconstruction. This will create a water tight mesh for you.
Eugene
Interesting. Can you add thickness to the mesh in Cloud compare?
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Re: How to print from a scan

Post by 3DForensics »

No thickness adjustment I know of in CloudCompare, but I believe 3ds Max, Rhino and other programs could do this relatively easily.
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Re: How to print from a scan

Post by tbwester »

3DForensics wrote:No thickness adjustment I know of in CloudCompare, but I believe 3ds Max, Rhino and other programs could do this relatively easily.
Gotcha. Well for complex meshes - which this car would fall into that category - I've found those software to be poor at adding a thickness. Geomagic is the only one that does a good job from my experience.

adding thickness is a tricky thing.

And no disrespect to you Eugene! Your work in general and your 3D prints are excellent.
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Re: How to print from a scan

Post by 3DForensics »

Another really good option is the Frost plugin for 3ds Max. This meshes point clouds and does in fact have thickness right from the start. This might be something to look at for your purposes.

http://www.thinkboxsoftware.com/frost/

Cheers,

Eugene
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Re: How to print from a scan

Post by Mike Annear »

I was doing this process just a few days ago, for creating a mesh to be cut out by a large multi axis robot.

I use a David Scanner for this sort of task, it creates a mesh instead of a point cloud, so that is a head start.
It can create a very neat, optimized mesh with no holes, even with shadowed scan data.

For Mesh editing ...
There is software called "Triangle Mesh Completer" ( http://www.ae3d.ru/ ).
It can be used as a standalone package, I use it as a plugin for Rhino.
Basically, you can use Rhino 3D's Meshing tools (or "Meshflow" plugin) to mesh the PTs file, then Triangle Mesh Completer to fill the holes.
It does a pretty clean job.
I'm pretty sure Rhino can "shell" (offset internally) a mesh, but I haven't tried it.

Geomagic is still the best solution, but that is quite expensive.
Cheers,
Mike.
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