Faro Technologies Inc. (www.faro.com) has developed a new laser scanner that the company said is more accurate and faster than any previous device.
Faro’s Photon Series of laser scanners are successors to the company’s Laser Scanner LS line and provide long-range scans at 120,000 points per second with up to 2-mm accuracy.
The company said its Photon scanners scan, digitally recreate and record all of an object or area’s dimensions, creating what looks like a photograph on the computer screen, but in three dimensions. The captured data can be used to create a digital model for reverse-engineering, quality assurance, inspection, automatic object recognition in modelling, CAD-to-part comparison, or for large areas, factory planning.
The Faro Photon Laser Scanner is a portable, computerized measurement device and is designed for use in various industries, including aerospace, automotive, shipbuilding, automated quality assurance, foundries, toy reproduction, as well as the process, piping and power industries and for such applications as cultural preservation, architecture, forensics, mining and tunnelling.
Faro demonstrated the new scanner at a media event February 22, in Orlando, Fla., near its Lake Mary, Fla., headquarters.
The new scanner provides technology to speed up manufacturing processes because it can perform in-process inspection in one-tenth of the time of previous scanners, with increased accuracy, reliability, and portability, David Morse, senior vice president for Faro Technologies, said.
“The more accurate scanner empowers users to digitize massive spaces into threedimensional, action-ready data,” Morse said.
He said the Photon scanner incorporates several technological advancements, including clarity that is three times greater than previous scanners, positional accuracy that is twice as precise as previous scanners, faster minimal scanning times, and a high-quality color overlay that is easy to use and that makes the photographic quality scans possible.
Among the new accessories is a high-definition color bracket, as well as a handle for safe and simple portability. When combined with the super-compact Power Base Battery, the Photon offers more than six hours of uninterrupted scanning performance.
The Photon scanner is the company’s sixth new product release in seven months, and takes its place alongside the company’s ScanArm V3 that was introduced in December.
