The development of 3-D scanner hardware by using dual laser pointer

Abstract

Engineering companies keep trying the quickly response the market demand, by reducing the lead time of product development. It is done by reproducing an existing commercial product because of some missing technical information or the product is obsolete but plays important role in a system. This concept is known as reverse engineering, in which duplicating the product is done by analyzing the knowledge behind the functionality of the product. Some modifications are performed to overcome the existing problems and to improve product functions and quality. In this concept, surface of object is captured using scanning probe and converted into points cloud. It becomes the source of information to build the digital model of the physical product. A finished and well analyzed models are then used to promote the next stage that is the mold making. Several methods are well known producing the points cloud. One of them is projected laser beam on a targeted surface while a digital camera intermittently takes digital images of it. In our previous work, a single laser pointer was applied to get a projected line on the object surface. Problems appeared when two free surfaces intersect in sharp angle. Product like a box can not be scanned successfully as it has four faces intersect at right (sharp) angle. To deal with this problem, a dual laser pointer system has been developed to improve the method of scanning and to enhance the quality of point cloud extracted from the scanned data. Two laser pointers are placed 90 degree to each other and a digital camera is positioned between them. Simple control algorithm is developed to synchronize the object rotation and the sequence of image capturing. Some experimental results confirm that a better points cloud can be developed using this new technique.