Scanning question from a 'Know nowt'

[neilfergylee]

Hello,

 

Total 3D printing newbie here in need of some help.

 

Back in the early 1980s I bought a Heller model of the Austin Princess.  Since about 1981 I have been meaning to build it for my closest friend whose mother had one.  We had some great days out in it, exploring pubs and railways together and I have been meaning to build it ever since.  I even sprayed the body in the correct BL paint!  And no, the kit hasn't rusted...

 

There is a catch: being a French kit, it is left-hand drive and the dashboard is the wrong way round.  It is not suitable for conversion but it did occur to me that it it was 3D scanned and uploaded to CAD, it could be mirrored in a few seconds and then a new version printed.

 

I don't have even the first clue as to who might provide such a service.  Can anybody advise please?

 

Many thanks,

 

Neil

[bootneck]

If you cannot get the part scanned, not sure about copyright issues here, then perhaps you could send the part to someone with CAD skills.  They could measure and draw the item in CAD, reverse it, then 3D print it for you?

 

Mike

[wellsprop]

It is, in theory, possible to scan something and create a CAD part. I dabbled with it as part of my dissertation. 

 

However, the type of scanner required is extremely expensive and all it does is generate a points cloud which can be converted into a reference mesh.

 

It still requires a CAD engineer to completely model the part. 

 

Unfortunately, all of this is rather costly...

[zebra]

I recently read a review of an iPhone 3D scanning app called Qlone which looks promising for scanning smallish objects with an iPhone. You can download the scan as an STL file, so I suppose you must then be able to mirror it and create your right hand drive part (BTW, I can't help wondering whether there were many 1/1 scale left hand drive Austin Princesses - maybe more Heller kits were produced than real LH drive cars!). Might be worth a try.

[neilfergylee]

21 hours ago, bootneck said:

If you cannot get the part scanned, not sure about copyright issues here, then perhaps you could send the part to someone with CAD skills.  They could measure and draw the item in CAD, reverse it, then 3D print it for you?

 

Mike

 

Thanks Mike, I'm not too worried about copyright as it's for personal use but I guess CAD is the fallback.

 

12 hours ago, wellsprop said:

It is, in theory, possible to scan something and create a CAD part. I dabbled with it as part of my dissertation. 

 

However, the type of scanner required is extremely expensive and all it does is generate a points cloud which can be converted into a reference mesh.

 

It still requires a CAD engineer to completely model the part. 

 

Unfortunately, all of this is rather costly...

 

Thanks @wellsprop, I innocently thought it would be an easy job!

 

7 hours ago, zebra said:

I recently read a review of an iPhone 3D scanning app called Qlone which looks promising for scanning smallish objects with an iPhone. You can download the scan as an STL file, so I suppose you must then be able to mirror it and create your right hand drive part (BTW, I can't help wondering whether there were many 1/1 scale left hand drive Austin Princesses - maybe more Heller kits were produced than real LH drive cars!). Might be worth a try.

 

Thanks @zebra, I'm giving it a try now!  Yes, I do wonder how many LHD pricesses there where!

 

 

All your input is very much appreciated.

 

Cheers,

 

Neil

 

[zebra]

On 1/7/2022 at 10:41 PM, neilfergylee said:

Thanks @zebra, I'm giving it a try now!

Let us know how you get on - it looked promising in the article I read but would be great to hear how well it actually works.

[neilfergylee]

22 hours ago, zebra said:

Let us know how you get on - it looked promising in the article I read but would be great to hear how well it actually works.

Will do!