There are tens of thousands of ships sailing across oceans every day. Some challenges such as lack of right skilled resources and industry knowledge come in the way of ship design and periodic inspections.
Thanks to its high precision and speed, handheld 3D laser scanner has great potentials in accelerating the product development of ships and streamlining their quality control process.
Ship design
In the initial stage of ship design, the design is done by using the geometries of a parent ship. The parent ship serves as a reference for the new vessel’s geometry which influences its hydrostatics and strength. A common issue arising in the design is the lack of original 3D drawings of a parent ship.
In this case, a typical approach to obtain data of a ship is to measure it with traditional tools such as tapes and rulers. An architect has to apply his knowledge and experience to create a set of ship lines with sufficient accuracy. These lines will be then used for later calculation. However, these measurements are time-consuming and burden-some.
With respect to time and cost, 3D scanners that capture the whole 3D data of a ship have become competitive in design and product development.
Case: yacht design
Scantech has helped a customer to redesign his yacht by providing a high-tech 3D scanner. Keeping up to date with the latest design trends and customizing a yacht is a symbol of exclusivity and luxury lifestyle for most of yacht owners.
In this case, the customer had no original 3D drawings of his yacht. He hoped to obtain 3D data of the yacht through 3D scanning and generate 3D models through professional 3D software. These reliable 3D data can be used for later development and redesign of his yacht.
The length of the yacht to be scanned is as long as 11 meters. If the scanning area of the 3D scanner is not large enough, the alignment errors will accumulate over the distance. Therefore, the measurement results would fail to meet the requirements of accuracy.
Scantech’s handheld 3D scanner KSCAN, with a bulit-in photogrammetry system, aims to solve this problem out. It is one of the first scanners that has a large-range scanning mode powered by infrared parallel lasers. It can scan an area as large as 1440 mm x 860 mm. Besides, with an accuracy of up to 0.020 mm, it suits well for scanning large objects.
It took about 1 hour to complete the scanning of the whole ship. Compared with traditional measurement methods, KSCAN greatly simplified the modeling of ships for designers and it highly improved the efficiency of the shipbuilding industry.
Summary
Scantech’s 3D scanning technology can also be used in reverse engineering and modification of a damaged hull. Scantech will continue to support customers in the development and design, assembly, inspection, maintenance, repair, and modification of products. By reducing the time and costs of design and inspection, we devote ourselves to optimizing the overall process of the ship industry.
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