Building on the synergy of 3D scanning and CAD at 3DEXPERIENCE World 2021

What: 3DEXPERIENCE World 2021
Who: Artec 3D and Artec Ambassadors Digitize Designs, GoMeasure3D & Rapid Scan 3D
Where: Online
When: February 8-11

One good thing that happened in 2020 was the release of HD Mode, which adds an even greater value to the industry-leading 3D scanners Artec Eva and Artec Leo. These handhelds will be flexing their structured-light muscles during one of the first major tech expos of 2021, 3DEXPERIENCE World, scheduled to run from February 8 through February 11.

3DEXPERIENCE World takes the baton from the well-established SOLIDWORKS World, an annual conference inaugurated in 1999 to bring together everyone who makes the best use of SOLIDWORKS CAD software in industries ranging from aerospace, energy, and telecom to retail, construction, and home & lifestyle. Go ahead and dive into the SOLIDWORKS ecosystem to sneak a peek at SOLIDWORKS 2022, meet up with company executives and experts, and learn how to solve application-specific challenges during lecture-style breakouts, panel discussions, and roundtables.

Team Artec will be at the show as well, since for pretty much any CAD user, a reliable, precise, and fast 3D scanner is an indispensable tool in their daily routines. And that’s exactly what Artec scanners are. The aforementioned Eva and Leo are perfect solutions for capturing heavy machinery, vehicles, and complex industrial parts with utmost precision and in minimal time. With the introduction of HD Mode, their resolution has become more than 2x greater, now reaching 0.2 mm; the capture of black and shiny surfaces has been improved dramatically; and noise levels have dwindled to the infinitesimal. This means that your scans will come out incredibly crisp, detail-rich, and faithful to the original as never before. What’s more, even when you’re scanning a large object with Eva or Leo, you don’t need to attach dozens or hundreds of targets to its surfaces. Nor will you have to waste minutes or even hours removing them post-scan!

Artec 3D scanner line-up. From left: Space Spider, Micro, Leo, Ray, and Eva

If you’re looking for a swift scanner to capture smaller industrial parts with metrological precision, consider Artec Space Spider. Up to 0.1 mm resolution and up to 0.05 mm accuracy ensure exceptional quality of scans, with every last detail present, from the fine threads of screws, to the hairline edges of apertures, and the miniature teeth of tiny gears and jigsaw blades, all reconstructed in razor-sharp color 3D with no areas left uncaptured.

For even more intricate jobs, such as creating 3D models of watch cases & components, jewelry items, or dental fixtures, pick the desktop Micro, which offers up to 0.01 mm point accuracy, up to 0.029 mm resolution, and a fully automated scanning workflow. Once you’ve placed an object on Micro’s rotating platform and clicked the start button in Artec Studio software, the scanner begins to digitize the object, calculating the best scanning path to collect all necessary data. You literally don’t need to have any prior experience with 3D scanners to start using this one. Automation of scanning translates into full capture of the object’s surfaces with no redundant frames generated along the way, which streamlines and speeds up data processing, thus saving your precious time.

But what if you need to 3D scan an entire room, the façade of a building, or the fuselage of an aircraft? We have a solution for really large projects, too: Artec Ray, a tripod-mounted hemispherical laser scanner with a 360° × 270° field of view. Users choose Artec Ray for its submillimeter distance accuracy, exceptionally clean data, best in class angular accuracy, and infallible performance when scanning objects up to 110 m away, both indoors and outdoors.

All Artec 3D scanners are powered by the company’s proprietary software that integrates with CAD systems. You can export a 3D model from Artec Studio to SOLIDWORKS to modify or inspect it as needed for your specific application. Starting with version 15, released in May 2020, the functionality of Artec Studio has been expanded to include basic CAD operations, such as precise positioning of 3D models in the global coordinate system and fitting primitives (planes, cones, spheres, and cylinders) into the mesh. You can now locate and measure deviations of mechanical parts against CAD objects directly in Artec Studio, which is essential for preliminary quality control. The latest version of Artec Studio has an array of other helpful tools, such as the time-saving option of propagating changes across a selected group of scans, enhanced texture reproduction algorithms, and faster project loading.

A 3D mesh model of a gear exported from Artec Studio to SOLIDWORKS

If you want to learn more about how to capitalize on the expansive opportunities that Artec 3D scanning technology opens up in your industry, or if you’d like to see a scanner demo right on your screen, or if you have specific questions for Artec scanning pros, book a ticket and join us at 3DEXPERIENCE World.