‘There’s a huge opportunity for capture’
by Sam Pfeifle
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January 25, 2012
ROCK HILL, S.C. – Did you miss it? While everyone was
recovering from New Year’s parties, 3D printer manufacturer 3D Systems was
completing a $135.5 million acquisition of Z Corporation and Vidar Systems,
bringing together a company with capabilities in all parts of the
capture-process-print pipeline.
Maybe you don’t think 3D printing is likely to spur much in
the way of large-scale laser scanning, that it’s only really for small-parts reverse
engineering, but that’s not the way 3D Systems is thinking.
“There’s clearly an opportunity in the scanning arena,” said
Kathy Lewis, VP of global marketing for 3D Systems, in an interview with SPAR. “Just
think of all the things that don’t exist in CAD today that need to exist in CAD
… Look at China, how many of their heritage architectural locations are not
documented in CAD and could not be replaced today. There’s a huge opportunity
to capture on that, as with all the museums and architectural digs.”
Now 3D Systems has Z Corp’s handheld scanners in house and
can really look at perfecting that scan-to-print workflow. “What’s the best
scanner for the application, and what technology fits with that application?
There’s still a lot of options with scanning, just as there are with 3D
printers,” she said. “Some are very robust, some fine featured, some just very
durable. I think customers are still looking for that guideline: How do I pick
the best capture for my situation?”
Continued...