Origins of 3D laser scanning services

3D scanning services goes way back, much farther than you might probably think. Just how far? Well, try the ancient Egyptians who had worked out a system for it when they desired replicas of the people who had passed onto the afterlife within their community. And so they came up with a process in which they made plaster casts of their dead’s mummified heads. This was very novel for humanity in general as the materials that this process required in order to accomplish a considerable degree of accuracy included linen and plaster. Both of these were very hard to come by at the time and so only the most affluent in society were able to scan people in such a costly and time consuming manner.So although 3D laser scanning services feels like the latest technology, it has been an interest of mankind that has been in development for a very long while. As such one of the best ways to appreciate and understand its significance and complexity is by looking back and going through the various steps that have made it possible to reach the extent that it has achieved. Although science fiction may lead us to assume that its development was a complete inevitability, the reality is that real experts had to tackle its challenges head on for a number of years so as to plant the seeds. It is their efforts that allow us to buy a model from a store, hold a 3d scanner in our hand and capture to our heart’s content!One of the key players in the development of sophisticated 3d laser scanning services, as you may had already assumed, is the introduction of laser technology. Without it this degree of 3d scanning services wouldn’t be nearly as accessible as we would have to rely on bulkier 3d scanning systems such as photogrammetry where you need a series of carefully positioned high resolution cameras. Many things had to happen up until the lead up to 3d laser scanning services.>In the early days of 3D scanners, namely the 1960’s, the methods put forth with respect to it were much more simplistic than the wondrous advances that we are seeing today. For instance there was no such thing as software, there was only hardware to rely on. As a matter of fact, many people reading this can probably venture a fairly good, rough guess as to what they might have been based on.

 

At that time they relied primarily on the coordinated use of projectors, cameras and lights, and as you probably may also surmise, they required a lot of effort and patience for operators to produce, with a considerable degree of precision, results that could be used for a certain helpful intended purpose. There was a long way to go.

 

What you have to keep in mind is that this was at the dawn of computerization. As these operating devices came into the equation, some truly complex models could be made that were unlike anything that had been seen before. Without it the best 3D laser scanning services were accomplished with the implementation of what was to be called a contact probe which worked by feeling it’s way around and in this manner data was compiled. There was real progress being made, but as you may figure this approach in turn entailed a very drawn out process that didn’t lend itself at all to the demands that tend to come along with both design and production.

 

A contact probe is far from ideal, in addition to being as painfully slow as it was it had to touch a thousand times to complete its jo- It also wasn’t able to work with soft substances as in the process it could change the shape of the object through the necessary prodding. One thing it did do was raise the expectations that we would think we could reach.

 

3D laser scanning services remained rather primitive for a number of years, up until the mid 80’s when some savvy tech people began to figure out how to incorporate the use of laser-beams, white light and neat shadowing tricks to come up with more precise results in considerable less time. The real obstacle that needed to be overcome in order for it to make the leap into the modern age lied not only in the 3d scanning service  procedure per se but rather the software that would make it possible to organize the pertinent data into an useful image, or data map.

 

In this period three types of optical technologies were available, namely area, stripe and point sensor, with stripe being the leading contender wherein a series of 3d scans would be made from different positions that in turn would help it ascertain what would be the dimensions of the object being analyzed. As you can imagine reconciling the data from three scans isn’t the easiest thing to do as you have to eliminate duplicated data and sift through all unnecessary data points so that you end up with only the millions of data points that define the object it question.

 

Although it may seem as though this would have been a tall order, there were interested parties that invested heavily in its development during the 80’s. The ones that stepped up to the plate were animation companies that wanted to achieve powerful enough 3d laser scanning service capabilities so as to be able to take real people and scan them for the sake of applying their likeness for entertainment purposes.

 

They were able to develop head 3d scanning but not full body 3d scanning services until the 90’s as there was a major problem that 3D laser scanning services was faced with, storage. While there were computers that could process images, they were very slow and couldn’t manage very much data as they didn’t have the storage capacity necessary to sift through the information with true efficacy. As computers really hit the mainstream in this decade there were dramatic increases in the storage spaces that computers could have. This allowed for the development of greater and better 3d scanners that could scan a much wider variety of objects and even capture the colors that they displayed.

 

In the twentieth century 3D laser scanning services didn’t receive much of any consideration, but if it would have, today it might of been commonplace to walk into an electronics store pick up a 3D scanner as a gift for a loved one. Regardless, it’s just a matter of time before 3d laser scanning services really picks up steam as a worthwhile hobby that anyone can jump into and we have to thank the hard work of the engineers of the past who make it all possible.