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Digital Photography: The Future of Small-Scale Manufacturing?

posted by janrinok on Thursday September 22 2016, @08:15AM   
from the for-some-values-of-small-scale dept.

Phoenix666 writes:

What if it were possible to quickly and inexpensively manufacture a part simply by using a series of close-range digital images taken of the object?

Michael Immel, instructor in the Harold and Inge Marcus Department of Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering, originally started thinking about the technique, called photogrammetry, for a different purpose, but quickly realized its application in manufacturing.

In this technique, digital images of an object that have been taken at various angles are used to create a point cloud -- or a large collection of points used to create 3D representation of existing structures -- from which a computer-aided design (CAD) file can be generated.

The resulting CAD file and subsequent 3D model could then be used to rebuild the part, or 3D print it, to its original specifications without using traditional methods, which are both expensive and time-consuming.

Surely you'd need an X-ray of internal structures, too?

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Original Submission

• Re:It's accurate if you don't need accuray Re:It's accurate if you don't need accuray (Score: 3, Informative) by tonyPick on Thursday September 22 2016, @12:49PM

  by tonyPick (1237) on Thursday September 22 2016, @12:49PM (#405102) Homepage Journal

  Yeah - for anything fine detail then the kind of resolution you can get with Photogrammetry is pretty rough.

  I did play around with some open source Photogrammetry libraries (OpenMVG) from standard images and blogged about it a bit here:

  http://hackingonspace.blogspot.co.uk/2015_09_01_archive.html [blogspot.co.uk]
  http://hackingonspace.blogspot.co.uk/2015_10_01_archive.html [blogspot.co.uk]

  There's a definite "melted plastic" look to most things, and there's a massive dependency on your ability to extract features to match corresponding points between views, and for lighting variance to throw a major spanner in the works.

  I would expect proper 3d scanning (Tof, Lidar, Patterned projection, etc) is the way to go for reproducing parts - you get a better result (finer resolution, more regular point cloud).

  And reading TFA :

  Bellows created a studio setup to take consistent and replicable photographs of the part. The environment included even lighting, to eliminate shadows, and a contrasting background to ensure the photo obtained enough data from the part. Additionally, Bellows took overlapping photos around the part at a specific angle and from different distances to be sure he had enough images to create the point clouds

  At which point why not stick the damn thing on a cheap scanning turntable?

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• Re:It's accurate if you don't need accuray (Score: 3, Informative) by richtopia on Thursday September 22 2016, @01:47PM

  by richtopia (3160) on Thursday September 22 2016, @01:47PM (#405130) Homepage Journal

  I've only expirimented a little with 3d scanning or Photogrammetry, but here are two packages that are very approachable if anyone wants to take a closer look (closed source unfortunately):

  For Photogrammetry: Autodesk 123D Catch. With the phone app it will guide you through the process, although a higher resolution camera will produce much better results
  http://www.123dapp.com/ [123dapp.com]

  For 3d scanning: Skanect. The software will work with a first generation Xbox Kinect, so you are a quick ebay purchase from a decent scanner.
  http://skanect.occipital.com/ [occipital.com]

  Parent