PFI:AIR - TT: Low Cost High Resolution 3D Scanning Technologies for 3D Printing

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This PFI:AIR Technology Translation project will leverage technologies developed under prior NSF projects to create advanced low-cost 3D scanners targeted at the flourishing consumer 3D printer market. Many low-cost desktop 3D printers are commercially available, but only a handful of low-cost desktop 3D scanners have been introduced in this market. Unfortunately, all these 3D scanners produce low quality 3D models as a result of intrinsic limitations of their technologies. Although the quality of existing low-cost 3D commercial (or home made) scanners is sufficient for hobbyists to replicate small objects using the current generation of personal 3D printers, the resolution of the low-cost desktop 3D scanners is not adequate for applications in art, entertainment, industrial inspection, reverse engineering, medicine, forensics, and in many other more advanced applications. Industrial 3D scanners, capable of producing high resolution 3D models, are available in the market, however they are at a price point one or two orders of magnitude higher, which makes them unsuitable for the high volume consumer 3D printer market, or even for some of the more advanced applications listed above. The 3D scanners to be developed in this project will be competitive in cost with existing low-cost desktop products, but able to produce 3D models of much higher quality, resulting in significant improvements over the state-of-the-art, with resulting competitive advantages.The project will integrate proprietary technologies within a well designed user-friendly system, which will remove the most tedious steps through smart automation and advanced algorithm design: projector-camera calibration technology will enable the creation of a simple user-friendly semi-automatic calibration process, critical for high quality reconstruction; unsynchronized structured lighting technology will enable the project to leverage low cost hardware components manufactured in high volumes for the mobile market, and also to simplify the circuitry quite significantly; multi-frequency phase shifting technology will enable 3D scanning of objects made of optically challenging materials, such as polished metal and other anisotropic and translucent materials; smooth signed distance and non-convex hull surface reconstruction technologies will result in high fidelity multi-resolution polygon meshes. The project will also develop other unique image and geometry processing technologies to register multiple scans, to cleanup the reconstructed models, and to prepare the models for 3D printing.In partnership with the Brown Program in Innovation Management and Entrepreneurship (PRIME), the project will analyze the market opportunities in a number of additional application domains, and will develop a broader marketing and commercialization strategy. A team of PRIME students will work to acquire an enhanced understanding of the identified market space, the market need, the competitive technologies; the potential impact of the proposed competitive innovation; necessary intellectual property protection, and licensing opportunities and freedom to operate issues. The students participating in this effort will acquire an enhanced understanding of innovation, technology commercialization and entrepreneurship through these experiences.