Increasing Productivity, Accuracy, and Customer Base

Harvest Technologies, based in Belton, Texas, provides rapid prototyping and manufacturing for a wide range of industries – including oil and gas, automotive, medical, consumer goods, power tools, and aerospace. With over 30 years of engineering experience, Harvest has been leading the way in rapid prototyping for over ten years – having developed several proprietary techniques of post-processing and finishing rapid prototypes.

Rapid prototyping (RP) uses a technological process to produce complex 3D objects in a short period of time, usually days rather than weeks. Tight tolerances are a must and capturing contour measurements of various prototypes creates difficulties. When working with complex measurements, traditional measurement tools such as calipers don’t work, create guesswork, human error, and inconsistent results. Harvest needed a better solution to answer their customers’ needs.

Thanks to one of these customers, Harvest chose the advanced technology of the FARO Laser ScanArm®. The ScanArm’s ability to capture high end surface measurements and its ability to take fine point measurements for use in stereolithography (STL) files was key. The ScanArm allows Harvest to scan complex contours and place them into a CAD model using Geomagic software. Tolerances are verified when the scanned prototypes are compared to an original 3D model, providing first article and CAD-to-part inspection capability.

What used to take days, now takes only hours with the ScanArm. Products are created in less time, more cost effectively, and without the waste caused by human error. Any deviations are caught with the very first part, not after creating piles of scrap during a faulty production run. More importantly, deviations a caught before a part is ever sent to a customer.

“It’s a great tool – well worth its weight in gold,” says Jason Morgan, Stereolithography Production Manager at Harvest.

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3D Laser Scanning Speeds Up Building Condition Surveys

Building Surveys emerged as a profession in the 1970’s and originated in the United Kingdom. Since that time it has become a well known profession that consists mostly of experienced surveyors. It is these surveyors that are being increasingly employed at all levels of the construction process. These building surveyors undertake a wide array of tasks such as: construction design, building works, project management and building surveys.

It is these building surveys that can be critical to the entire construction process. Not only does the documentation need to be accurate but it usually requires a timely delivery. An article on facilitiesnet.com discusses the advantages of using laser scanning technology in the surveying process. As it highlights the speediness of the technology, it is important to note that the FARO Laser Scanner Photon is the fastest phase-shift based laser scanner in the marketplace. With 976,000 points captured per second, the Photon is able to produce detailed point clouds up to 120 meters. Surveyors, who understand the importance of accuracy and saving time, rely on the Photon to enhance the building process.

To read the full “3-D Laser Scanning Speeds Up Building Condition Surveys,” click HERE.