John Higgins

According to CMAK's Chief Engineer, John Higgins: "The key task was to capture the design intent of both the external and internal forms in order to provide accurate data for subsequent FEA analysis."

The plan was to recreate the surface models from point data collected using conventional CMM technology.However, it soon became clear that this approach was just too labour intensive to enable sufficient data to be captured within the available time.

"We therefore approached 3D Scanners UK to assist in the compilation of the point cloud data," Higgins continues."Furthermore, we felt it made sense to ask 3D Scanners to use their expertise to create the finished surface models for us too."

Scanning of the external and internal surfaces was completed in a single day, with each point cloud file containing around 4 million individual co-ordinates.

"This alone represented a massive time saving," Higgins confirms.