For the last 4 years, ScanCorner is in the business of converting analog photography and videography into digital format. Before the advent of digital photography in 2000s, most of the pictures and videos taken are in the analog format. This includes negatives, slides, printed photos, VHS tapes, MiniDV tapes, 8mm films and so on. ScanCorner digitizes these formats and helps preserve these precious items forever. Customers get their old photo collection digitized and later on can print this digitized collection using photo printers and gift these photo books to friends and family members. The technology involved in such an activity is pretty much standardized.

But what about three dimensional scanning and printing? There are many objects, sculptures, memorable items from childhood that we all wish to have preserved. But there is no way to preserve those objects than by just taking normal pictures of those objects. With the advent of 3D printing and 3D scanning technology, this is bound to change. Now we can scan the three dimensional objects and also make multiple prints of those objects. Also, the price of this technology has come within the reach of a common man. So, in the future we can scan the 3D objects the same way we take pictures and preserve those precious objects in the repository. Below paragraphs explain this technology in detail.

3D Printing is the process of printing an object layer by layer from scratch. A three dimensional computer model (Designed in any of the 3D modeling softwares) is given as feed to the printer and the printer shall print that design layer by layer. There are various technologies to do the same but the most popular and widely used technology is FDM technology.  Also, there are various types of materials that can be used for printing but the most popular material is special kind of plastic called ABS Plastic, PLA Plastic. The price of this technology came down drastically in the last few years and currently the price of these printers stood at around 2000 USD. In future, prices of these printers will still come down further and enter the affordable range of individual customers.

think3D Object

think3D Object

Though printing has become very easy and convenient, designing the object is still a big problem. There is huge learning curve required to design objects using 3D modeling softwares and this is stopping many people from adopting 3D printing technology. To overcome this issue, few innovative companies worked on and built 3D scanners. These scanners can scan the objects and create digital three dimensional objects. All one needs to do is rotate the scanner around the object or vice versa and the digital object gets created. The price of these scanners was very high in the past. In the last few years, the price of these scanners have come down to the affordable price range.

3D Scan Object

3D Scan Object

With the help of 3D scanner and 3D printer, one can now scan any live three dimensional object and also can print the same as and when it is required. There are two popular scanners in the market right now. One is Cubify Sense 3D scanner and the other one is Makerbot Digitizer. Using these scanners, one can scan the objects and preserve the digital copy for three dimensional objects. Recently a new scanner was launched by FlashForge. This scanner proved to be the best 3D scanner so far.

Summing it all, now it is very much possible to preserve the beautiful three dimensional objects and print those objects on demand. Experts believe this technology is going to revolutionize the way objects are printed in future.

Source: think3D ( www.think3d.in )