Three-D modeling is a much greater challenge over 2D drafting, because we are not introducing just one more dimension (z), but adding five more views to the traditional plan view: front, back, left, right, and bottom. And so in reality 3D is 6x more complex than 2D.
We've seen how digital photography solved the 2D problem for consumers. They take a picture, view it, share it, and optionally print it at home with today's dirt-cheap color printers. For 3D, the problem is still far from solved, as dismal sales of consumer 3D printers amply illustrates. (Speaking of 3D, how's that 3D TV working out for you?)
Working against the tide of hyper-optimistic and generally-naive media, companies in our industry are struggling to make 3D output effortlessly acceptable to moms and dads for their kids. Tactics include driving down the price to a few hundred dollars, providing all-in-one packages, and flooding schools with devices under the Get-'Em-While-They're-Young theory of market success.
HP also has had problems cracking the 3D nut, with its initial foray with Stratasys coming to an end -- very quietly. Last fall, they announced their own 3D printer (to ship next year) and also an all-in-one solution called Sprout: scanner for input, along with software and hardware for processing the scan.
Figure 1HP's Sprout consisting of (top to bottom): scanner head with 2D camera and 3D scanner, all-in-one computer and screen running new 3D Capture software, round capture stage, and Touch Canvas pad; (right) Dremel 3D printer
What HP announced earlier this month was the addition of 3D input and output -- or as HP calls it, onramp and offramp (see Figure 1). The new system now handles theses tasks:
- 3D scans of physical objects + color texture maps
- 3D Capture software for editing scans and generating output to 3D printers (free)
- Rotating stage to capture 3D objects ($299 in USA)
Perhaps the most interesting part is the head hanging over top of the computer. It combines these tasks (see Figure 2):
- 14-megapixel 2D camera for taking 2D photographs
- Lamp for illuminating the scene, such as with stripped lighting
- 3D scanner with three lenses
Figure 2Three elements of the scanner head
HP originally saw Sprout as useful for designers who want to combine digital photographs with 2D scans of 3D objects. The example they showed was of scans of jewelry superimposed on the picture of a woman. The giant Touch Canvas pad recognizes 20 touch points for manipulating images.
Now 3D is being added: the scans can be made in 3D, then printed on supported 3D printers. To assist, the software is updated to handle 3D scans, and an optional rotating capture stage can be purchased.
To make 3D scans, you place the object on the capture stage. It is slanted at 15 degrees to help the scanner (tilted at a further 20 degrees) see part-way underneath the object. Not all the way, of course, and so you will need to turn it over and do a second -- or even third -- scan. Maximim size is 8x8x8" (20x20x20cm). Magnets help keep slippery objects from sliding off the spinning stage.
HP calls it a "a more intuitive, natural way to work." I did not test Sprout, but the promotional video provided by HP accelerates the scanning process to a Keystone Cop-like speed. This hints that the scanning speed is on the slow side; PC World confirms this, reporting that the scanning speed takes about 20 minutes, and that the system could barely cope with processing the 3D data. (See http://www.pcworld.com/article/2934439/hands-on-how-to-digitize-a-dinosaur-with-hp-3d-capture.html for a series of slides.)
Q&A
Ralph Grabowski: What does the scanning technology consist of?
HP: Sprout is capable of 3D scanning with different technologies, but the key technology in 3D Capture is "active structured light scanning."
- For the faster pre-scan, Intel's RealSense camera uses invisible IR [infrared] light from an MEMS [micro electro mechanical systems] IR laser projector. It projects multiple striped patterns, which are captured by a VGA-resolution [640x480] IR camera. Multiple IR frames are analyzed at speeds of up to 60fps [frames per second] to obtain the depth map.
- For the final high-resolution scan, Sprout's 14.6mp [megapixel] camera is used together with a DLP [digital light processing] projector to project a series of horizontal striped patterns. These are analyzed to create a depth map with a corresponding color texture map.
To make the size of the resulting files manageable, the images are downsized. The mesh density in the final model is decimated [removes unneeded vertices] to achieve the best balance between quality and file size.
Ralph Grabowski: The size of object that can be scanned is quite small at 8" cubed. Does HP have plans to create larger scanners, such as a handheld scanner with which users can walk around large objects?
HP: Sprout's current integrated 3D capture solution makes it easy for anyone to scan objects that fit on the Touch Mat or capture stage. Simplicity and ease of use were paramount, which are guaranteed with the controlled hardware setup.
As handheld scanning technology advances, we expect Sprout to expand the 3D scanning use cases for a larger range of object types and sizes.
Ralph Grabowski: How did HP arrive at 15 degrees for the tilt angle?
HP: The angle of 15 degrees achieves a balance between three factors:
- Expose the most object area to the camera during the rotation
- Minimize the potential for the object to tip over
- Minimize the height of the stage when level
Increasing the angle helps scan coverage, but it also increases the potential for the object to fall over. This makes it more challenging to fix the object and keep it stable during the entire 360-degree turn. A greater angle increases the height of the stage when level reducing the scannable volume. And so we arrived at 15 degrees as the optimal balance.
Ralph Grabowski: In the video, the dinosaur toy is scanned three times in different positions. How would an end user know how to lay the part so that it is fully scanned?
HP: Users can preview the scan after each cycle and look for areas that have not been scanned. If there are still holes or missing surfaces in the scan, the user can position the object on the stage to best reveal those missing surfaces to the camera. The live preview of the object on the vertical screen during positioning shows what surfaces and side of the object will be captured.
Ralph Grabowski: You are partnering with Dremel, but Dremel is not a name that immediately springs to mind when thinking of 3D printing.
HP: Dremel is one of the biggest names in the maker community, and has been a trusted brand for prototyping and building for hobbyists and even professionals. This perfectly complements the target market of Sprout's 3D scanning.
Three-D printing is really a manufacturing process requiring a deep understanding of the manufacturing tools and consumer manufacturing environment. Desktop 3D printers using FDM (fused deposition manufacturing) is a crowded field, but Dremel made the extra effort to make the process more consumer-friendly. For these reasons, Dremel is a great partner to simplify the 3D offramp as Sprout simplifies the 3D onramp.
Ralph Grabowski: Why not HP's own 3D printers?
HP: Availability of HP's end-to-end 3D printing system is planned in 2016, and will be designed for enterprise clients and service bureaus. Our breakthrough technology, called HP Multi Jet Fusion technology, will offer a faster and less expensive 3D printer that produces higher-quality products than current solutions.
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The new software and hardware ships in July. https://sprout.hp.com |
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OrthoGraph now has three versions of its iPad-based building surveying app:
- Orthograph Floorplan is an update for OrthoGraph Architect for precise surveying jobs by professionals, but lacks the cloud component
- OrthoGraph Cloud Client adds cloud services to Florrplan, app after registering at http://cloud.orthograph.net
- OrthoGraph Tape Measure is a new app for just recording layout information onsite for those who don't need to do complete floor plans
All three are downloadable from the iTunes store. More information from https://www.orthograph.net. In other news, OrthoGraph reports it has attracted new investment to its company. |
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Read the blog at WorldCAD Access as I write more about the CAD industry, and give tips on using hardware and software. You can also keep up with the blog through RSS feeds and email alerts.
I'm also on Twitter at @upfrontezine throughout the day with late-breaking CAD news and wry commentary:
upFront.eZine (@upFronteZine) Jun 15: I'll be at the ODA's annual Teigha Developer Conference, Sept 7-8 in Prague, Czech Republic -> http://www.opendesign.com/DeveloperConference2015 |
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Re: The CAD That Manufacturing Needs
In my 24+ years of CAD/CAM experience I have had the pleasure of working in both history-based and direct-modeling CAD systems. From the early 90’s, when CoCreate products came out with direct solid modeling, we saw definite benefits over Pro/Engineer in the changing industry of plastic parts/assemblies. Of course, as was alluded to by Dr. Ushakov, both systems have their pros and cons.
In 1998, a better way was born from the developers of CoCreate and 3D-Eye/VDS. As a result, IronCAD came on the scene and from the beginning had the ability to mix history, feature-based, and direct modeling in the same part at the same time.
(IronCAD allows designers to begin a concept using the benefits of history and features. Then pass the design off to manufacturing who can make any modification at any time by either editing the designer’s features or using direct modeling among other patented technologies. Additionally, only the selected areas of the part are modified leaving other areas of the part’s feature data untouched. If the design needs to go back to the designer, tools are in place to help the designer recognize features back into history-based or the part can continue to be updated using direct modeling. SmartMarkup is also available to track these design/manufacturing changes in any process. This is all built into the base IronCAD product.)
I think in a rapidly changing world, "both" is a clearly superior option to "either/or." - Kevin DeVoll, support and QA manager IronCAD LLC
Thank you for your publication of Dmitry’s paper. I hope it will attract a lot of your readers. We have just copied this text at isicad.net in Russian: http://isicad.ru/ru/articles.php?article_num=17707 - David Levin, isiscad
The editor replies: The Russian version of this article attracted 75 responses. Here is the Google Translate link to read them in English: https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=ru&tl=en&js=y&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Fisicad.ru%2Fru%2Farticles.php%3Farticle_num%3D17707&edit-text=&act=url
Re: Apocalypse nearing as computers slow down
There are many reasons why speeds are going down, but one of them is certainly the end of Moore's Law, which effectively has been dead and gone for years. Moore's Law is about the doubling of the number of transistors in a processor every 18 months or so (the original version was doubling every 12 months).
In the past years of the world of desktop machines, the extra capacity of faster machines was used primarily to cover the many sins of sloppy software. "Don't worry about pigging out that code, because the machines will be twice as fast in a year."
Doubling the number of transistors also means putting the same number of transistors onto a smaller and smaller die over time, and so consume less and less power while operating faster and faster. When Moore's Law ended, that automatic reduction in power consumption (or, for the same power operating faster) ended. What you see today is just the fun beginning for three reasons:
- First, programming today has gotten sloppier and piggier than ever before, as script kiddies turn to massively inefficient ways of writing code.
- Second, add to that the tendency of today's billions of abjectly clueless users to hand over their devices to whatever software Google or their "carefully selected" cast of millions of advertising carpetbaggers want to load onto their smartphones means that bloatware, malware, and endless other programs will be eating alive whatever processing capacity there is.
- Third, with Moore's Law dead the only practical way of keeping speed up is through parallel processing, and writing real parallel code is very difficult.
Simply dispatching four different tasks to four different cores ain't writing parallel code, it's just a different way to time-share existing resources in a non-parallel way. Automatically chopping up a single program to run simultaneously on four cores and then re-assembling the results at the end is parallelism, and that's way more difficult. - Dimitri Rotow via WorldCAD Access
Re: Celebrating Our 20th Anniversary
Read the upFront.eZine article about three influential but commercially unsuccessful CAD packages: Trispectives, IntelliCADD, and SpaceClaim. You may consider adding SketchUp to the list too as it falls in the same class as Trispectives (one of my favorite CAD software at the time it came out). - Name withheld by request
I retired last Wednesday and thank you for all the updates over the years. Don't want to go "cold turkey". Want to stay informed. - B. M. |
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Spin Doctor of the Moment
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"We are aligning our engineering efforts and capabilities to deliver on our strategy and, in particular, our three core ambitions. This change will enable us to deliver better products and services that our customers love at a more rapid pace." - Satya Nadella, ceo, Microsoft http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/06/17/stephen_elop_exits_microsoft/ |
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