/ News
Researchers Combine Robotics & Artec Spider for Unrivaled 3D Scanning of Complex Shapes
As the new year looms and the holiday season comes to a close, we’ve all had our share of wrapping gifts that were complicated in shape, sometimes with numerous angles that poked out all over the place, or with rounded edges that made the thoughtful presentation of a gift equally challenging.
Most of us do our best, but unless we are wrapping specialists, some areas are impossible to encompass neatly, with the finished product bearing an overall slightly sloppy look. This problem could be equated to what it’s like trying to 3D scan an object with a more challenging shape, sometimes resulting in data that is damaged, with blind spots that are difficult to manage.
Often it takes two or more motivated teams coming together to solve a problem. While innovators have been working to create technology that can offer competent 3D scanning, and it certainly exists, Artec Group and a team of international researchers have put together their own high performance technological team in the form of a specialized 3D scanner and program that can manipulate robotics to perform total scans of objects that require uncommon attention to detail.
Artec Spider 3D Scanner
Artec Group, headquartered in Luxembourg, is comprised of experts who specialize in 3D scanning and processing involving surfaces, as well as face recognition. With the Artec Spider, they have created what they announce to be “the first handheld 3D scanner for CAD applications.” It’s meant to thoroughly scan items with extremely intricate shapes — in full color.
Collaborating with engineers from the Visual Computing Research Center, Tel-Aviv University, the Memorial University of Newfoundland, the University of Konstanz, and Shandong University, a new system has been created by using the Artec Spider in tandem with the research group’s PR2 robot. The PR2, boasting a humanistic look and sense of movement, holds the Artec in its ‘hand’ and puts it to use, rapidly scanning the most detailed and ornate objects from every angle. The double system captures 7.5 frames per second and processes 1 million points per second, meaning it gets the job done more expediently than a laser printer, and requires no post-processing.
The researchers found that the Artec Spider worked best with the PR2 in terms of high resolution and extreme accuracy regarding edges and miniature parts. In a completely automated scanning system, the PR2 is able to respond to analysis and data from the Artec Spider, moving it and the object strategically and precisely as instructed to complete comprehensive scanning. At each viewpoint, it takes a snapshot, which is merged with the last picture, until a whole object is completed.
Artec’s Scanning SDK is responsible for the program running the Spider, which is able to make a “confidence map” that eliminates challenges with blind spots, recognizing the areas where more scanning is necessary to collect all the data. With the programming from Artec’s Scanning SDK, the system understands when total scanning is complete. During complete testing of Artek’s Scanning SDK, the Artec Spider, and the PR2 working together, researchers concluded that the algorithms responsible for visibility and boundaries were excellent, as well as algorithms regarding rounded edges and density.
While there is always talk about automation eliminating much needed human jobs, often new robots are created for new tasks that simply never could have been done otherwise, and are making changes that transform our world in almost every capacity from the most serious of areas like the medical industry — to the engineer and design sectors, where robotics accentuate the jobs of many professionals.
What impact do you think the combination of robotics and scanning will have on the 3D printing industry? Have you tried to create anything like this, or used a similar system? Tell us about it in the Unrivaled 3D Scanning forum at 3DPB.com.
Source: http://3dprint.com/33780/artec-spider-3d-scanning/
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Founded by Russian entrepreneur Dmitry Itskov in February 2011 with the participation of leading Russian specialists in the field of neural interfaces, robotics, artificial organs and systems.
The main goals of the 2045 Initiative: the creation and realization of a new strategy for the development of humanity which meets global civilization challenges; the creation of optimale conditions promoting the spiritual enlightenment of humanity; and the realization of a new futuristic reality based on 5 principles: high spirituality, high culture, high ethics, high science and high technologies.
The main science mega-project of the 2045 Initiative aims to create technologies enabling the transfer of a individual’s personality to a more advanced non-biological carrier, and extending life, including to the point of immortality. We devote particular attention to enabling the fullest possible dialogue between the world’s major spiritual traditions, science and society.
A large-scale transformation of humanity, comparable to some of the major spiritual and sci-tech revolutions in history, will require a new strategy. We believe this to be necessary to overcome existing crises, which threaten our planetary habitat and the continued existence of humanity as a species. With the 2045 Initiative, we hope to realize a new strategy for humanity's development, and in so doing, create a more productive, fulfilling, and satisfying future.
The "2045" team is working towards creating an international research center where leading scientists will be engaged in research and development in the fields of anthropomorphic robotics, living systems modeling and brain and consciousness modeling with the goal of transferring one’s individual consciousness to an artificial carrier and achieving cybernetic immortality.
An annual congress "The Global Future 2045" is organized by the Initiative to give platform for discussing mankind's evolutionary strategy based on technologies of cybernetic immortality as well as the possible impact of such technologies on global society, politics and economies of the future.
Future prospects of "2045" Initiative for society
2015-2020
The emergence and widespread use of affordable android "avatars" controlled by a "brain-computer" interface. Coupled with related technologies “avatars’ will give people a number of new features: ability to work in dangerous environments, perform rescue operations, travel in extreme situations etc.
Avatar components will be used in medicine for the rehabilitation of fully or partially disabled patients giving them prosthetic limbs or recover lost senses.
2020-2025
Creation of an autonomous life-support system for the human brain linked to a robot, ‘avatar’, will save people whose body is completely worn out or irreversibly damaged. Any patient with an intact brain will be able to return to a fully functioning bodily life. Such technologies will greatly enlarge the possibility of hybrid bio-electronic devices, thus creating a new IT revolution and will make all kinds of superimpositions of electronic and biological systems possible.
2030-2035
Creation of a computer model of the brain and human consciousness with the subsequent development of means to transfer individual consciousness onto an artificial carrier. This development will profoundly change the world, it will not only give everyone the possibility of cybernetic immortality but will also create a friendly artificial intelligence, expand human capabilities and provide opportunities for ordinary people to restore or modify their own brain multiple times. The final result at this stage can be a real revolution in the understanding of human nature that will completely change the human and technical prospects for humanity.
2045
This is the time when substance-independent minds will receive new bodies with capacities far exceeding those of ordinary humans. A new era for humanity will arrive! Changes will occur in all spheres of human activity – energy generation, transportation, politics, medicine, psychology, sciences, and so on.
Today it is hard to imagine a future when bodies consisting of nanorobots will become affordable and capable of taking any form. It is also hard to imagine body holograms featuring controlled matter. One thing is clear however: humanity, for the first time in its history, will make a fully managed evolutionary transition and eventually become a new species. Moreover, prerequisites for a large-scale expansion into outer space will be created as well.
Key elements of the project in the future
• International social movement
• social network immortal.me
• charitable foundation "Global Future 2045" (Foundation 2045)
• scientific research centre "Immortality"
• business incubator
• University of "Immortality"
• annual award for contribution to the realization of the project of "Immortality”.
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