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The Measuring Room Approach

Following an exponential increase in the adoption of Creaform’s HandySCAN 3D and MetraSCAN 3D in the F1 and Motorsport sector, MSL has announced the opening of it’s third UK facility at Silverstone Innovation Centre to increase engineering and application support.

We have taken the strategic decision to open a third UK Facility within the Silverstone Innovation Centre in the heart of Northamptonshire’s Motorsport Valley. With technical support and demonstration facilities already located in both Derby and Peterborough, this further supports the managements intention to increase the growth of installations with local applications engineering teams.

Motorsport and F1 constrained by confidentiality clauses

Deryck Lamb, Account Manager at MSL says “Frustratingly, in the world of Motorsport and particularly F1, we are constrained by confidentiality clauses, therefore the communication and widespread adoption of Creaform’s, HandySCAN 3D and MetraSCAN 3D remains low key and mostly unpublished.  The sales of Creaform products have grown massively in the last few years, in all industry sectors, however Automotive and Motorsport has seen the largest growth areas.  In part due to the tru-portability of handheld scanning, without the need for tripods and granite tables, but mostly due to the advancements in scanning speeds, resolution and accuracy that lend themselves perfectly to fast paced R & D activities”.

The Creaform MetraSCAN 3D consists of a camera (C-Track) tracking the handheld laser scanner, with only a tethered cable to consider, as opposed to the constraints of a portable measuring arms elbow joints and tubular sections.  This gives the operator increased flexibility to freely move around the component to be measured and scanned.  Additionally, the camera can be used to track a reference frame of 12mm photogrammetry targets, if you need to expand the measuring envelope, simply lift the camera, re-position it and it locks back in the part co-ordinate system instantly.

MSL now has multiple installations of ‘measuring rooms’,  the C-Track camera can be utilised as a standalone system, within an automated robotic scanning cell, or with two, three or four cameras connected. Such a set-up creates an entire volumetric measuring ‘zone’ or ‘room’ whereby line of sight is always maintained, thus a single handheld scanner or tactile probe, can move 360 degrees around the component in one set-up, as the operator crosses from one camera’s field of view to another, the scanner is automatically tracked and remains ‘live’ thus no down time aligning scan data afterwards or performing device moves or slow ‘leapfrog’ procedures.

Lamb continues “This capability offers significant time saving benefits compared to Laser Trackers and portable arms, when combined with 30 laser line stripes as opposed to a single laser line, we believe on a component similar in scale to a 60% F1 wind tunnel model or an Automotive full clay model we are 50% faster than other scanning systems.

Our Customers are at the heart of MSL’s DNA

MSL Managing Director, Andrew Tagg says “Customer support remains at the heart of MSL’s DNA.  Whilst I have a vision of growth for the business, I am 100% focused on doing that with best-in-class innovative products, but with equal emphasis on exceptional service and application support.  This year MSL has taken on its first ever apprentice and have strengthened the application support team with additional personnel. We have intentionally strengthened here, slightly in advance of hiring more sales Account Managers, hopefully that says everything about MSL and what our customers mean to the business”.

Tagg concludes, “We recently announced new OEM partnerships with Virtek Vision, and nTopology.  The Virtek IRIS3D has many application benefits for guided assembly, and remains the number one OEM for composite ply-layup process improvements. nTopology is a next generation design software offering diverse generative design toolsets, unique design automation capabilities, and unbreakable geometry engine for additive manufacturing. Having a presence at Silverstone is the perfect platform to increase adoption of both technologies and we are excited about what the future holds for both MSL and our customers alike”.

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