3D scanning helped create a masterpiece for Honoring Exemplary officers !

Start of the Project

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Honoring many illustrious law enforcement officers during its annual conventions. This one-of-a-kind mascot represented the attributes of the work involved, it was decided to be presented during the annual ceremonies.

The problem was: This sculpture was one of a kind, and the award sculpture was going to be much smaller than the original. So, it was decided to reverse engineer this casting to make a new bronze cast for creating smaller multiple bronze copies of the original sculpture.

3D Scanning of the Bronze Statue

Applications 3D was contracted to provide the 3d scanning, reverse engineering, and 3D printing services. The 3D scanning was done using Steinbichler Comet 5 white light scanning system. This high-resolution digitizing machine facilitated the collection of tens of millions of highly accurate x,y, and z points on the surface of the sculpture. These points then meshed together into a triangular polygon model.

 Geomagic Studio© software creates digital shape modeling. Geomagic is a leading provider of 3D software for creating digital models of physical objects for reverse engineering, product design, inspection, and analysis. Its advanced tools, powerful interface, ease of use, and potent automation technology make Geomagic the industry leader in its class.

In Studio, the scanned polygon model was first optimized. We decimated the points on the flatter areas while keeping a larger number of points on the more featured areas. During this automatic process, other abnormalities in the data were also repaired. Then the model was scaled down in size to the smaller required size. Any missing data were filled in using curvature continuity methods so that the missing areas were represented as close to the original as possible. The resulting model was finally a watertight STL model!

Building the final model

The next step was the creation of an actual physical model, for use as a pattern for making the bronze production. The challenge at this stage was to accurately build all the finer details in the model. Completing the project by using the finished STL model to 3D print a physical SLA model. The intricate shape of the STL model proved to be a challenge. 3 Dimensional Services of Rochester Hills, MI, with their advanced 3d printing and prototyping capabilities, achieved this.

During the build, due to the complex shape of the STL model, the 3D print kept failing. But, after repeated attempts, a perfect model of the knight with the horse and intricate details like the reins and spear, was built successfully!

This SLA model was then used by the bronze cast maker as a pattern to make the tool for producing the smaller-sized sculptures for the award ceremony!