# An Open-Source, Low-Cost Solution for 3D Scanning

## TL;DR

This paper introduces an affordable, open-source 3D scanning system suitable for industrial use, achieving reasonable accuracy and speed.

## Contribution

The novel contribution is a low-cost, open-source 3D scanning system using laser triangulation for industrial applications.

## Key findings

- The system achieves a maximum mean height error of 2.56 mm.
- Scanning time is approximately 4 seconds per laser line.
- The system's accuracy is comparable to commercial solutions at a lower cost.

## Abstract

With new applications continuously emerging in the fields of manufacturing, quality control and inspection, the need to develop three-dimensional (3D) scanning solutions suitable for industrial environments increases. 3D scanning is the process of analyzing one or more objects in order to convert and store the object’s features in a digital format. Due to the increased costs of industrial 3D scanning solutions, this paper proposes an open-source, low-cost architecture for obtaining a 3D model that can be used in manufacturing, which involves a linear laser beam that is swept across the object via a rotating mirror, and a camera that grabs images, to further be used to extract the dimensions of the object through a technique inspired by laser triangulation. The 3D models for several objects are obtained, analyzed and compared to the dimensions of their respective real-world counterparts. For the tested objects, the proposed system yields a maximum mean height error of 2.56 mm, a maximum mean length error of 1.48 mm and a maximum mean width error of 1.30 mm on the raw point cloud and a scanning time of ∼4 s per laser line. Finally, a few observations and ways to improve the proposed solution are mentioned.