Three-Dimensional Immersion Scanning Technique: A Scalable Low-Cost Solution for 3D Scanning Using Water-Based Fluid

Abstract

Three-dimensional scanning technology has been traditionally used in the medical and engineering industries, but these scanners can be expensive or limited in their capabilities. This research aimed to develop low-cost 3D scanning using rotation and immersion in a water-based fluid. This technique uses a reconstruction approach similar to CT scanners but with significantly less instrumentation and cost than traditional CT scanners or other optical scanning techniques. The setup consisted of a container filled with a mixture of water and Xanthan gum. The object to be scanned was submerged at various rotation angles. A stepper motor slide with a needle was used to measure the fluid level increment as the object being scanned was submerged into the container. The results showed that the 3D scanning using immersion in a water-based fluid was feasible and could be adapted to a wide range of object sizes. The technique produced reconstructed images of objects with gaps or irregularly shaped openings in a low-cost fashion. A 3D printed model with a width of 30.7200 ± 0.2388 mm and height of 31.6800 ± 0.3445 mm was compared to its scan to evaluate the precision of the technique. Its width/height ratio (0.9697 ± 0.0084) overlaps the margin of error of the width/height ratio of the reconstructed image (0.9649 ± 0.0191), showing statistical similarities. The signal-to-noise ratio was calculated at around 6 dB. Suggestions for future work are made to improve the parameters of this promising, low-cost technique.