3D Scanning Rig And DIY Turntable

3D Scanning Rotary Table

It seems almost every day 3D scanning is becoming more and more accessible to the general DIYer. The hardware required is minimal and there are several scanning softwares and workflows to choose from. However, if you have slowly walked around a subject while holding a Kinect and trying to get a good scan, you know this is not an easy task. A quick internet search will result in several DIY scanning setup solutions that have been cobbled together and lack substantial documentation…. until now! [aldricnegrier] is fighting back and has designed and documented a rotary table that will spin at a constant speed while a subject is 3D scanned, making person scanning just that much easier.

The project starts off with a plywood base with a Lazy Susan bearing assembly attached to the top. The Lazy Susan supports the rotating platform for the subject person to stand on, but it’s not just a platform, it’s also a huge gear! The platform teeth mesh with a much smaller 3D printed gear mounted on the shaft of a DC motor and reduction gearbox assembly.

Another goal of the project was to make the rotary table autonomous. There is an ultrasonic sensor mounted to the base aimed above the rotating platform. The ultrasonic sensor is connected to an Arduino and if the system senses someone or something on the platform for 3 seconds, the Arduino will command a DC motor driver to start spinning the platform.

As cool as this project is so far, [aldricnegrier] wanted to make it even cooler: he added speech recognition. Using Microsoft’s Speech Toolkit, saying the words ‘Start Skanect‘ will start the scanning process on the PC. Now, a sole person can scan themselves easily and reliably.

[aldricnegrier] has made all of his CAD files, STL files and Arduino code available so anyone wanting to build this clearly capable setup can do so!

11 thoughts on “3D Scanning Rig And DIY Turntable

  1. Random question- I’ve seen many articles on HaD about 3D scanning solid objects on the outside only-
    has anyone or any company worked out 3D scanning on parts that arent solid to the core-
    ie, things like plastic shells with inner and outer geometry? I’d pay someone to scan things like
    that for me, but I’ve never seen any builds that allow for something like that. Can it be done?

    1. An rather expensive Faro type arm with a laser scanner on the end works pretty well from what I saw at a trade show. The arm joints keep track of where the laser head is positioned, so you can freely move it all around (or inside) a part. The more you overlap, the more data points in the scan. With the precision required, I think it’ll be a while before we see a home build of one of those though.

    2. This. Being able to scan the interior area of say a large, open bearing for example, would be excellent. I think the complexity comes from not only supporting the piece to be scanned but scanner head movement relative to the object as well. A delta bot design seems most likely to accomplish the scanner head movement necessary however the object would still need complex manipulation to get all area access. The fixture contact area will always be a problem.

    3. A touch probe on a CNC machine can be used to generate a point cloud, which can be used to generate a model. The resolution is adjustable, higher resolutions require more points which takes more time. For most things this will work, have to use a little forethought to orient the part in a way that gives the most access to the surfaces you want modeled. I have no idea if there is software out there to merge point clouds from different orientations… But that would be the way to get a complete model.

  2. what i don’t see and i’m sure many into 3d scanning are curious about is how many cloud points does this accomplish? The main reason people still use laser lines and other optical projection methods is because of the much higher resolution you can accomplish.

  3. This is going to be an egg throwing comment, but where do you find more information about this project from aldricnegrier? I’m not finding a link to it. going to search the web, but thought there would be a link on here directly

Leave a Reply

Please be kind and respectful to help make the comments section excellent. (Comment Policy)

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.