Re: Digitizer Arm

When I brought up this subject, I was well aware of laser-based scanners
used with a rotary table to generate CAD models of actors in the film
industry. But I don't think anyone of us is interested in creating a laser
interferometer and associated software.

About 20 years ago, I was a engine engineer at Ford Motor Company in
Detroit. At that time, the body engineers had a team of people that
sculpted the exterior of a new car body in clay. It was allowed to dry and
then traced with a large mechnical arm that generated a series of guide
points. From these points - rough cad drawings were generated and later
interopolated to generate surfaces that the mechanists used to create metal
dies for stamping sheet metal. This is the kind of gadget that I am
talking about.

I wonder if the object being scanned were rotated - would the probe still
need to be normal to the surface? One could generate a series of x and y
coordinate plus an angle of rotation - what am I missing here?

Dick