3D Scanning
Assignment
- 3D scan an object
Scanning
As per recommendations from my instructors and previous years' Fab graduates, I used the app Polycam for my scanning. I decided to 3D scan a gaming microphone that was sitting in our lab.
As the microphone is a relatively complex object, I first moved it to an area with relatively little background clutter and good lighting. I put the microphone on a white clean table that was directly under a ceiling light and next to a window. As is visible in the video, this meant that my scan was well-lit and focused.
To use Polycam to generate a 3D model, I then took around 60 photos of the microphone from a multitude of different angles around the mic. After uploading the photos to Polycam, it generated a GLB file which I could view and convert to other formats.
I then imported the .OBJ file into Fusion360, where I could view and modify the design.
As is shown in the scanned model, the actual design is very rough. While shapes are roughly preserved, there is a lot of background that is scanned and there is no geometry in the actual model. However, this was a cool skill to learn and I might try this out in the future on other objects.
If I were to print this model, one major problem could be the scanned ground in the print. I could address this in a couple ways:
- create a flat plane to intersect the microphone base in Fusion, and delete everything under it
- create a rectangular box to intersect the microphone base in Fusion, and delete everything under it
- manually edit the model's height coordinates and cut off anything underneath 0, thus deleting the lower layers
- cut out the ground layers after slicing in PrusaSlicer