Xpress Boats Utilizes our 3D Scanning Services to Accelerate Product Design

Brian Metzger, Product Specialist for 3D Scanners walks through the 3D scanning services he provided on site for Xpress Boats.

Xpress Boats is a family owned and operated business specializing in building quality aluminum boats. They pride themselves on quality construction for the best possible value. Xpress Boats deals with a lot of complex shapes which are not always easy to model by hand. The team reached out to TriMech to 3D scan components to help accelerate the engineering process.

The goal was to capture a mesh model of the entire boat so that it could be reverse engineered into a design model. 3D scanning is a much quicker way to obtain the data than traditional methods that involve tedious measurements and time-consuming CAD modeling.

Utilizing the T-SCAN Hawk 2

The ZEISS T-SCAN Hawk 2 was the chosen scanner, and it only took a couple of steps.

The handheld ZEISS T-SCAN Hawk 2 was chosen for this project because it has incredible accuracy on fine details, its field of view, and its ease of use. It’s a great option for reverse engineering, maintenance, and quality control applications.

The T-SCAN Hawk 2 uses satellite mode to scan objects up to multiple meters. It boasts easy scanner positioning with its new laser grid. With the red laser grid, you can efficiently scan large sections or use it for fast 3D reconstruction. The blue laser lines are suitable for small parts, details or for dark, shiny surfaces. This combination of laser registration brings you the best of both worlds.

T-SCAN Hawk for 3D Scanning Services

4 steps to capturing scan data

Step one

We need to capture the location of all of the targets that have been placed on the boat. We use satellite mode to do this by taking two-dimensional photographs from lots of different angles. The software is able to triangulate the location of every target very, very precisely.

Step two

We come in with our laser scanner, which projects a grid of structured light onto the surface of the boat and is read by the cameras on the scanner. The software is able to interpret the spacing and curvature on the grid lines and turn that into a three-dimensional point cloud.

Step three

The software triangulates that entire point cloud and creates a solid object made up of very, very small triangular surfaces. We call this mesh, and we can export it in a format like .STL.

Step four

The mesh can be brought into a reverse engineering software, like Geomagic for SOLIDWORKS or Design X, and it can be turned into a design model made up of sketches, surfaces, features with design intent that can be used for future work and building new boats.

3D Scanning Services – Building a Mesh STL

Choosing TriMech as a Partner for 3D Scanning Services

Carter Andrews from Xpress Boats shares why they chose to utilize TriMech’s 3D scanning services:

“One of the reasons why we are so excited to be collaborating with TriMech on this scanning adventure that we’ve gone on is they really work with you on the costing and getting your goals done.

You can basically hire them to scan your boats, post-process all of the images and do everything you need and provide you with the files that you’re looking for.

They also offer it where you can buy the post-processing software and they can just come and scan the boats and you can do all the post-processing yourself, saving yourself some costs. Or they also sell all of the equipment so you can purchase the equipment and the software from them to be able to do everything yourself.

This really resonates well with small to medium sized companies like ourselves, where cost is a big issue in product development and innovation. And so, any way that we can mitigate that cost and reduce some of those costs on our end is very advantageous for us. And so, I really want to thank TriMech for coming out today and helping us with our goals.”

If you’re interested in TriMech’s 3D scanning and reverse engineering services, contact us.