Hexagon Moves To Enhance 3D Point Cloud Offering

Hexagon Metrology has acquired Technodigit SARL, the Lyon, France-based developer of 3DReshaper software. The software is designed for 3D point cloud and 3D mesh manipulation for reverse engineering, rapid prototyping, product design and industrial inspection. It is expected to increase users’ capability to organize and manipulate the millions of data points created with high speed laser scanning systems such as Hexagon’s ScanShark laser probe and the Leica T-Scan.

While laser scanning enables users to collect a large amount of high-density data, working with so many data points can be challenging, says Ken Woodbine, president of Wilcox Associates, the Hexagon Metrology software development group and publisher of PC-DMIS measurement software. That’s because in addition to large file sizes, the raw data isn’t necessarily organized in a way that’s useful. By providing capability to import point clouds of unlimited size and perform mess shaping, editing and 3D surface comparison, 3DReshaper software can alleviate these problems, Mr. Woodbine says.

“In the short run, the acquisition will enhance our existing portfolio of software dedicated to point-cloud acquisition and manipulation,” Mr. Woodbine says. “The longer view is that the core technologies and algorithms can be selectively incorporated into the PC-DMIS engine to create greater flexibility and functionality in our core software package.”