Week 5: 3D scanning and printing

Scanning

The FabLab has no scanners available. We therefore had to use photogrametry techniques. After some tests using Arc3D (free online service), I decided to try to use VisualSFM - Meshlab chain, to stick with open-source free software. Here are two tutorials that convinced me to try:

Meshlab install is straightforward. But VSFM install is trickier: there is no package, and the installer assumes use of Homebrew)... As a Fink user, I had to go my own way (by the way, the Brew installer fails under Mac OS X 10.11.2... maybe because of my Fink installation).

Mac OS X 10.11.2 (15C50)
update XQuartz 2.7.8 (xorg-server 1.16.4)
update Xcode version 7.2.1 (7C1002)
update Fink 0.39.3
install (at least) following packages with Fink: gtk2 gtk+2-dev gtk2-engines atk1 llvm-gcc42 llvm-gcc42-shlibs
use the following modifications of the Makefile.

This works... but this is only for the GUI !

Side project

I built a small rotating plate. Here is the laser-cut file. Here is the list of the most stupide mistakes I made:

Centered the servomotor instead of centering its axis
Made too tight holes for the servomotor
Decided to use a servo-motor instead of a stepper motor
Tried quick-and-dirty glue assembly instead of screws

However, it works. It's only a first version since VisualSFM needs spiral trajectory for the camera.

There are many IR remote control for cameras that can be coupled easily to the control of the rotating plate.

PS : I also tried 123D Catch. It is a tremendous tools, but non-free software, closed, and all-in-one (no possibility to take picture from a camera, and then import them → no automation is possible).

3D printing

Since I have no real education in conventional manufacturing, I have tried to find out what makes a shape impossible to make substractively. Here are cube-based shapes iteratively constructed to find out what could be a criteria, on simple shapes. Obviously, the last cube can not be obtained with substractive manufacturing... Here is the OpenSCAD file.

However, this shapes are neither very interesting, neither spectacular : once finished, it is impossible to see it cannot be substractively made. I therefore designed an extremely simple stuff:

Here is the OpenSCAD file. Here are the parameters used for the 3D printing on a Ultimaker2 via Cura.

Here is the result:

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