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Minima spearheads a design revolution across engineering

Written by Ben Fountain

Wednesday, 09 April 2008

A Suffolk product design consultancy is pioneering a handheld 3D scanner that is set to revolutionise engineering in the aerospace, automotive and marine sectors – as well as enhancing surgeons’ capabilities in the medical arena. Minima Design will be showcasing the EXAscan laser scanner at a global expo but is already seeing huge interest; the scanner requires no secondary positioning device. Alastair Kingsland, design director at Minima says: “The EXAscan will be particularly useful for scanning products and devices found throughout many market sectors including aerospace, automotive, biomechanics, consumer products and multimedia.  “Its applications run from reverse engineering to design and manufacture, inspection, digital mock-ups and simulation.” This type of scanner is already being used by carmakers including Renault and DaimlerChrysler. They are used to streamline the design cycle by reducing the number of prototypes needed at the design stage. The scanner gives an excellent return on investment by reducing the man-hours allocated to prototyping and analysis. The scanner also has uses in the design and manufacturing of aircraft  – and in the design and development of flight simulators – after-market applications and OEM parts. In biomechanics such scanners are used to reduce turnaround times by replacing or skipping steps in traditional methods for creating and fitting custom prosthetic and orthotic devices, including plaster casts. The data needed to create custom orthotic devices is easy to compile using the scanner as laboratory or workshop technicians can scan the limb and transfer the data into CAD applications for design, measurement, rectification, retrofit, and production. Artificial extensions or body part replacements can be custom-made using digital files created by the scanners cutting out the need for traditional plaster casts. In packaging applications, the scanner can be used for reverse engineering where no 3D data already exists. Similarly, in marine applications, where boats and vessels have previously been crafted by hand the scanner provides a bridge between the artisan and industrial manufacture, filling the gap between the two. Setting it apart from previous scanning devices, the EXAscan is equipped with a third, high definition camera. This greatly increases the scanning resolution as well as the data acquisition accuracy. Minima says it has seen unprecedented interest in the service and that new applications for the technology are being found everyday. Set as favorite Bookmark Email This Hits: 379 Trackback(0) TrackBack URI for this entry Comments (0) Subscribe to this comment's feed Write comment This content has been locked. You can no longer post any comment.

 

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