3D Scanning a bicycle helmet with the purpose of capturing its geometry is a good example of the process of 3D Scanning an d producing a Mesh file in .stl format.
The geometry of a helmet is difficult to measure and inspect or when we want to make improvements and don't have the original designs. 3D Scanning is a very reliable and effective method of capturing any object with great accuracy.
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The need to 3D scan the helmet arose because of the customer's requirements of studying its aerodynamics with digital means (flow simulation) and adding components for improvement.
The customer will be performing the aerodynamics study using 3D parametric desing software (specifically Solidworks).
The stages of the procedure were as follows:
First, we covered the helmet with a specialised powder spray to avoid noise and reflections.
Next, we conducted partial scans of the helmet with our FARO SIAB white light scanner with 100μm accuracy and 150μm resolution.
After a few hours, we had completed the scanning process for the entire helmet and proceeded to unite all the partial scans so as to produce a unified point cloud. We cleaned any noise that may have been captured and created the Mesh file to bring the object to solid form so that any alterations can be made.
After processing the mesh file and creating the solid object in STEP format, the file was sent to the customer for further study and design improvement.
