Low Cost and Effective 3D Scanner

Overview

The hardware necessary for a laser triangulation 3D scanner is implemented by this project along with a PC user interface for controlling the scanner and acquiring data through an Ethernet connection.

Explanation

There 360-degree scans being facilitated by the scanner by implementing a rotating sample platform. To increase resolution, a linear actuator is used for each positioned of rotation that is scanned. The actual mesh reconstruction was out of the scope in this project although the scanner is capable of producing all data necessary to compute and construct 3D representations. A much more complete representation of an object that is not currently available to the average person is provided by 3D scan.

Controlling the hardware is the main purpose of the Mega644 which makes the hardware and software become closely linked by component. Other important functions of the microcontroller include running the stepper motors, configuring the camera, reacting to network commands, capturing the camera data, and sending camera data over Ethernet.

Through an interrupt driven process, the MCU receives commands and then takes the appropriate state according to the command received. The MCU sends a message to the PC upon command execution completion.