The Bodyshop Magazine featured Eastbourne Coach Finishers (ECF car care) using our 3D laser scanning and 3D printing services to create a replacement part for a cherished car.

The part required to get tis car back on the road was not available so we provided a 3D solution, saving ECF and the insurance company both time and money and making the car owner very happy.

Introduction:

Shogun Retail as part of Mitsubishi Motors provides a full range of motor vehicles to UK consumers.

As well as the introduction and supply of new vehicles their marketing team provides associated marketing materials and content to support launches of new vehicles in their immersive showrooms.

Our role:

3D-Consulting (3DC) were rehired to provide updated display models for the L200 and ASX vehicles for 2020.

Having a baseline from the initial Lakeside store launch in 2019: https://3d-consultancy.com/project/mitsubishi-showroom-lakeside/ this made the ASX update much easier and we were able to re model the facelift changes to the front and rear of the vehicle.

For the L200 vehicle the update to bodywork was significant and this led to 3DC having to undertake a full 3D scan of the vehicle.  This was the biggest scan we have ever undertaken measuring 5.2m x 1.8m x 1.8m L, W, H envelope.  The task was made possible using industry leading equipment and software.

For the 3D Scanning we used a Creaform Handheld TM portable laser scanner, which provides volumetric accuracy of 0.020 +0.040mm/m.  The resulting point cloud data was then post processed with Geomagic R software. A single alloy wheel was 3D Scanned and replicated  three further times in position to complete the vehicle capture on site at the Mitsubishi Motors show room in Cirencester.

A model as detailed and sizeable as this creates a large file that needs decimating for it to be handled for other follow on design/manufacturing tasks with digital files.  The key being to decimate and delete unnecessary data and points whilst preserving the detail and surface smoothness for a display model.  The final steps were to scale down the full vehicle to its scaled model size, with an M8 mounting block drawn in CAD and added to the stl mesh to then allow the 3D printed model to be fixed onto the showroom display.

If you have project that requires precise 3D Scanning be it very small objects to the very large like this one then get in touch

For this interesting and important behavioural study, we had to call on two of our core services: 3D Scanning and 3D Printing.

An initial meeting provided us the brief and intent for George. Then we were able to put a plan in place to support his work. George wanted to use 3D models in an experiment investigating the behavioural ecology of predator prey interactions. In this first experiment we needed to closely capture and recreate the fish sufficiently so that that it elicited anti-predator behaviours from prey; this was vital to the success of the project.

This was achieved by 3D Scanning with a powerful handheld Creaform laser scanner and post processing the resulting scanned data with Geomagic software to achieve a watertight stl file. This ensured the high-resolution capture was successfully output in the final 3d printed models.

Both fish models were then split into smaller sections for ease and economy of 3D Printing. Once built the resulting parts then bonded together and sanded along join lines as shown below.

To add greater realism and closer resemblance to the living fish (as explained a vital requirement for a behavioural study) the models were then painted accordingly, as shown below, ready for testing.

We look forward to seeing the findings of the study and while we await, we continue to plan for the next study where George is looking to add greater realism by working with a caught shark from local waters.

If you have a requirement for 3D Scanning, 3D Printing or a range of CAD and digital processes in your project please contact us with your requirements. We are happy to support academics in their work as well as commercial projects using these processes.