The Home Machinist!

Autodesk's new 3DCatch software will soon be available on the iPad. Imagine, you go to a meet and see a steamer you admire. Wander around in a circle and take a bunch of pictures. Ding! All done, you now have the plans in 3D. Similarly, a steam engine at a museum is instantly ready for CNC once you get home. What an amazing world...

Instantly ready for CNC? 3d plans from pictures?
I think not! At best you would have a simple model that could be used for computer games in virtual worlds.
How you hold the camera will drastically alter the perceived dimensions of parts.

What about tolerances? Tool Paths? Material selection? Check to see if the part could actually be machined?

I don't believe the hype. They would have an easier time training a cat to fly an airplane.

http://www.123dapp.com/catch#atAGlance

There is a huge amount of potential with this application, espically for those with access to 3D CAD programs which the 3D models can be imported into.


$0.02

Curtis F.

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16 Years of SolidWorks experience...now I feel old.

If it workes well I have a building full of parts for it, and a want list full of locomotives also.

Camera phones are not the greatest, but cheap 3D scanners are promising. The Kinect, Microsoft's 3D add on for X-Box, is a mid range 3D scanner camera. A really good 3D scanner, made for the job, would perform much better and might really do what is being touted, if the software is developed to a high degree, and doesn't cost a house.

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Narrow Gauge Exchange FORUM dot com
Loco112

It's not the takeoff, but the landing that cats have trouble with.

But this is not what they make it out to be. 3D models for animation have no real use in a CNC or CAD world.

From someone who has done it...

C.

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Adirondack Car & Foundry

oh, but we all know the cat will jump out and watch carnage as the plane crashes.. then just walk away like nothing happened.. (at-least my cat would)

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If it is not live steam. its not worth it.

Visit my website here.

Any 3D model can be rapid-prototyped. Take a few dozen photos of a triple valve, have the system make a 3D model, scale it to your needs, send it to Shapeways.com and take delivery of decorative triple valve within a week.

Theoretically, I could take 300 photos of a Worthington BL2 #4 Feedwater Heater, use their software to make a 3D reference surface model, then import it into SolidWorks where I can then measure the part and create a parametric 3D model from which RP models, wax molds, CNC tool paths, etc. can be generated.

This technology isn't all that much different from laser scanner systems, which are used for CAD regularly. It'll be interesting to see how bad the accuracy is in practice. +/- 1/4" would be acceptable for making reference 3D models of most full-size locomotive parts, espically if they're parts that can't be taken off of an engine and won't fit in my car so I can bring them home and fully measure them.

The "skilled labor" and time consuming part is going to be converting the 3D surface model into a parametric model. But I don't see that as possibly taking any more time than traveling to measure a part on a locomotive, going home, finding you missed a couple of key dimensions and then needing to make the 6 hour drive back to the locomotive.


$0.02

Curtis F.

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16 Years of SolidWorks experience...now I feel old.

AutoCAD's 123D suite of software is pretty awesome. Also, it's free!

Having worked with pretty much everything mentioned here, as cool as it sounds, there's no way we're going to be able to take a bunch of pictures and produce a working model. Also, if you've ever been around a full-sized locomotive, you're going to have a harder time than you think actually getting many of the needed views, and this type of software or 3D scanners don't typically generate models quite as good as you want.

I love cool new products, and this indeed is revolutionary for many realms, but as for building the things, this won't be of much use for us live steamers without the proper dimensions, of which there are many needed.

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Derek Schipper
Founder, SurvivingSteam.com

I do 3d world design and modeling for video games for a living. Nothing is as easy as "take some photos, send them through the software, and ta-da, you're good to go!"

Even with good, high quality laser scans there are hours and hours and hours of cleanup time spent getting the mesh into a workable state.

The concept is neat, but not quite as 1-2-3 Easy as you think.

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John Schuch
http://www.whatthehal.com & http://www.csppry.org

And curtis, when will the BL be ready? I need one for the I1.
D.

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My current gang, Hugh the weim and Guiness the pointer. Both 6, so should keep me in shape for a while!
Lost Paddington, my senior boy last year and he had a good time here. Better than going in a kennel, Ill miss him.
I miss them all.

John's right. You need to be careful about speaking in broad terms about image based modeling technology.

What it will allow you to do when calibrated properly is to capture a basic reference for overall sizing or appearance which can act as a springboard for a clean design.

You will end up with a fairly dirty point mesh from which you can take rough measurements from for overall sizing. In certain, very limited cases you could use image based modeling to capture a complex cast piece and get the nuances of the outside finish. It has no direct use for machined parts which need clean lines and accurate drawing. It's more of a useful tool for artistic pieces and sculpture, as can be seen with the examples on the 123D-catch website itself.

I used to work in visual effects as well and variants of image based modeling technology have been around for 10+ years, but only now has processing power really caught up with the white paper concepts. LIDAR is more accurate but requires expensive hardware. Image based modeling is great because you just need a camera. but for engineering drawings of machined parts it has no usefulness.

--M

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Allen Models Chloe, MEG Steam "Wendy", 3/4" scale "Anny"
Darjeeling B-Class project - sonadaworks.com
Photography and more - www.mikemassee.com

I was at WestTec last week. There were a number of vendors that were doing demos on reverse engineering with 3D scan technology. Some simple some not so simple. One vendor was using a hand held laser scanner on an aircraft rib. Would have been interesting to see the results of the scan to their CAM/CAD software and then printed on a rapid prototype printer.