Options for 'scanned models'

[MIKE 88]

Hi

My company has given me a workstation to cope with the possiblities of using 3DCAD in near future. I have inventor 2009 installed.

The engineering management have gone to a 3rd party, 3D scanning company to try and get one of our engines, plus features, in a viewable format for customers.

The intention was to have a 3D engine model with various accessories attached.

After the scanning was done by the 3rd part i have received several .igs files each around 300mb each.

My machine to around 15 minutes to load the file and once it had loaded it does seem to struggle when trying to suppress or change the model.

I believe the scanning of engines and parts may not be the best option to go with to send to customers as my fairly powerful machine struggled and i guess you can't expect everyone to have a similar spec'd station.

Here is a screenshot of what i see.

 

 

Is there a way of removing the 'geometry lines' from the model for a start??

I'm not sure what to advise the team where to go from here with my very limited knowledge on 3DCAD packages and never before coming across the 3D scanning of parts.

I would like some feeback if possible, i hope this post reads ok.

Thanks

Mike

[shift1313]

Hey mike. The parts you are looking at are composite surfaces. In each individual part I would try to use the Stitch Surface command and try to create solids from those parts. If the surfaces are closed, this should work fine. I notice in your feature tree that a few of the parts have an 'i' next to them so something is wrong with them. I would right click on each one and change the "visible" option to hide them except one of them and play with that.

 

Out of curiosity which scanner/software did the 3rd party use? The problem with a 3d scanned version of something is going to be the detail. It sounds like what you want is a lot less detail. If the company used something like a probe scanner(probably not) you could have them give you points of interest like mounting bosses on the block and then a more simplified model of the rest of the engine.

[MIKE 88]

Hey mike. The parts you are looking at are composite surfaces. In each individual part I would try to use the Stitch Surface command and try to create solids from those parts. If the surfaces are closed, this should work fine. I notice in your feature tree that a few of the parts have an 'i' next to them so something is wrong with them. I would right click on each one and change the "visible" option to hide them except one of them and play with that.

Out of curiosity which scanner/software did the 3rd party use? The problem with a 3d scanned version of something is going to be the detail. It sounds like what you want is a lot less detail. If the company used something like a probe scanner(probably not) you could have them give you points of interest like mounting bosses on the block and then a more simplified model of the rest of the engine.

Ah a fellow biker! I can’t quite see what machine that is you’re piloting though.

Tips were useful thanks, I’m going to hide them all apart from a basic scanned part and go from there.

Is there a way i can check out the problems that you mentioned?

I think the initial idea was to have a step or IGS file that a customer can receive and see if our engine is going to be able to ‘’fit’ into whatever application they are dealing with. If that makes sense.

I have tried to help out with their new move to 3D but I come from a company using Solidworks on a system that ran like clockwork and the only thing i was doing was alterations on existing solid work parts and assemblies. My company wants to move toward 3D without the knowledge in management and not a great deal of understanding about the software.

[JD Mather]

I suspect that it would take less time to model from scratch (a simplified form-factor model) that in would take to fix up your scanned model.

 

In any case the scanned model could be used only for reference in remodeling because of the filesize. 300mb, never mind, start over with native geometry from scratch.

 

If you know SolidWorks it should come quickly in Inventor.

 

If you really want to fool with the scanned data http://au.autodesk.com/?nd=class&session_id=3056

[shift1313]

I agree mike that a start from scratch model would probably be best. From the looks of it you would be dealing with equipment engines like lpg or diesel for construction equipment, fork lifts things of that nature? A lot of the smooth castings, fillets, geometry on the valve cover and so on really eats up memory.

 

If you right click on the parts with "i" there should be an option to see whats wrong.

 

While the user interface is a little different between SW and inventor the transition shouldnt be too difficult to handle.

 

Is there anyway you can upload one of the surfaces there? maybe the air cleaner housing. Something like the starter looks to have a lot of polygons in the mesh so it would probably be a large part of the file.

 

The bike is a compilation of a few:) 83gpz 750 frame and engine, gsxr suspension and wheels, lots of custom parts and a turbo of a diesel bobcat, FI... its a work in progress.

http://i268.photobucket.com/albums/jj39/shift1313/GPz750/PB010002.jpg

 

what do you ride?

[ecshclark]

I worked at a boat manufacturer and had to deal with engine models from Volvo-Penta and Merc Cruiser. We used Pro-E and I-DEAS software, each has alot more capabililty than Inventor, but the issues were the same that you have. We recieved models in every conceivable state you can imagine. From full blown models with all the internal guts of the engine - which of course took forever to load and was more info than we needed, (If I could of figured out the tolerances and materials, everything was there to manufacturer the engine!) to shrink wrapped models that looked more like a blob than an engine (you couldn't accuratly locate the engine mounts on those models). For us, as a customer, the best engine models were stripped down to the bare essentials, only the exterior surfaces and major components. What did we care about the internal workings? An example in your model is the fan behind the radiator, and I assume it is under a shroud. Ditch the fan, and maybe the shroud also. Elliminate everything the customer doesn't need to know, and wouldn't have any concerns about it not being there. If you have time and budget to open up a project, and model the engine from scratch, great! But I bet you don't, so use what you have and simplify it. On parts, stitch surfaces together, but it doesn't have to be a solid model, a stitched surface model will work just as well for your customers. You could also try shrinkwrapping or saving a simplified Level of Detail to speed things up. We ended up doing these kind of modifications to the engine models just so we could work with them, and I'll tell you, it ticked us off to no end that the engine manufacturers couldn't, or wouldn't supply us with fast, easy to use simplified models.