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21/10/2009
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Texas-based aviation services company M7 Aerospace is offering to create precise, 3D portraits of entire planes down to one-thousandth of an inch. To execute the job, M7 uses a Z Corporation ZScanner 700 PX, a handheld laser scanner that scans large objects such as aircraft and cars that previously have been too big to capture by hand.
 It recently used the ZScanner to capture the entire surface of a Fairchild Metroliner in a resolution of 0.1mm, in just three days. The Fairchild Metroliner is a 19-seat commuter class, turboprop aircraft with a 57-foot wingspan.
"There's a growing need for commercial customers to keep their older aircraft flying and productive," said Joe Furnish, M7 Aerospace vice president of engineering services. "This new scanning capability from Z Corporation helps us do that. By automatically capturing deep engineering data, we can more quickly and efficiently reverse-engineer aircraft and components that were originally designed in the 2D era, before 3D CAD was readily available."
Many scanning technologies require jigs, fixtures, tripods or mechanical arms. The ZScanner's advantage is that it is handheld and self-referencing, automatically determining its location in space without the need for external orienting devices. The user simply sweeps the scanner over the target surface with complete freedom of movement. As the user scans, the digitised object appears on a laptop screen, eliminating costly and time consuming post processing.
"There's an increasing demand for large-scale scanning capability in aviation, as well as other industries that engage in reverse engineering, inspection, 3D archiving, measurement, damage assessment and similar uses," said Richard Honey, president of AGS 3D. "The ZScanner's speed, accuracy, and ease of use translate into cost savings, new revenue and increased quality."
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Author
Justin Cunningham
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