ShapeGrabber

With the complexity of today’s molded parts, there are dimensions that are physically impossible to measure using standard tools, vision and even touch probe machines. To further enhance Viking Plastics’ quality department and ability to produce high quality, complex parts, a 3D laser scanner made by ShapeGrabber was acquired. The new ShapeGrabber laser scanner complements the CMM by allowing our quality department to measure millions of points, in just a matter of minutes. It goes beyond the ability of standard measuring tools, measuring significantly more precisely.

The ShapeGrabber Ai310 takes a full 360° scan of a part and translates it into a point cloud, which can then be overlaid to CAD. Using a color map, we are able to determine every high or low spot in a part using dimensioning tolerances taken from 2D print or CAD. With this capability Viking Plastics can create a 3D PDF that can be sent to the customer allowing them to see possible design improvements.