Paintball players like to have the latest and greatest in both functional and aesthetic add-ons to enhance their performance, look, and ultimate enjoyment of the game.

The Challenge:
Making aftermarket accessories for paintball guns is a large and growing industry. Paintball players like to have the latest and greatest in both functional and aesthetic add-ons to enhance their performance, look, and ultimate enjoyment of the game. 

Whether the accessory is an add-on or a replacement part, in order for it to fit precisely with the paintball gun itself, the design engineer needs exact CAD data of the original gun for these new components to fit and function.

GKS scanned a paintball gun and broke out different areas for various add-on accessories.  Some of the accessories included specialized hand grips, stocks and stock extensions, as well as triggers and finger guards.

GKS scanned a paintball gun and broke out different areas for various add-on accessories.

The Solution:
The free-form shapes and irregular surfaces of paintball guns are captured by laser scanning very accurately. Because the laser scanning system projects a line of laser light onto all of a part’s surfaces while cameras continuously triangulate the changing distance and profile of the laser line as it sweeps along, the problems of missing data on an irregularly shaped surface are greatly reduced.

The laser line moves back and forth over the part’s surface until the complete area is captured digitally. The system measures details and complex free-form geometry so that the object can be exactly replicated digitally. Laser scanners measure articles quickly, picking up to 75,000 coordinate points per second, and generate huge numbers of data points without the need for special templates or fixtures.

The Laser Design Surveyor WS-3040 (work envelope of 31.5” x 39” x 27.5”) was used to perform the paintball gun scan.

The Laser Design Surveyor WS-3040 (work envelope of 31.5” x 39” x 27.5”) was used to perform the paintball gun scan. This highly automated 3D laser scanning system utilizes Laser Design’s SLP-250 laser line scanning probe integrated with Wenzel’s CMM technology and includes both a Renishaw PH-10 programmable indexing head along with a rotary 4th axis stage. This system has full conventional probing capability when combined with traditional hard probes and OpenDMIS inspection software.

The Surveyor WS-3040 laser scanning software, Surveyor Scan Control (SSC), took only a few minutes to set up. Part extremities are quickly scanned into the software and the desired scan density is entered (as high as 100,000 points per square inch). Scanning was automatic and done unattended except for one flip of the special magnetic fixture that allows both sides of the gun to be scanned.  After scanning the coordinate data is automatically combined into one high density point cloud with a common coordinate system.  About 45 minutes of scan time was required to get both sides of the gun.

The combination of the rotary stage with the PH-10 allows automated scanning of the most difficult shaped parts with little operator interaction.

The combination of the rotary stage with the PH-10 allows automated scanning of the most difficult shaped parts with little operator interaction. Laser Design is one of the only scanning technology companies able to combine these 4-, 5- and 6-axis scanning capabilities into an easy-to-set-up system. The Surveyor WS-3040 is accurate and repeatable to ± 0.0005” – the most accurate, most automated line laser scanning system in the industry. When outfitted for conventional contact probing this same CMM can measure discrete points to ± 0.0002” or better when configured with higher precision Wenzel CMM’s.

Laser scanning is ideal for reverse engineering complex parts into CAD models because the whole surface of an object is scanned, not just a limited sample of discrete points like in contact measurement.  Parts can be modeled “as is” for exact replication or the original design intent of the prismatic shapes can be extracted even if the as-built part is warped, misaligned,  or broken as is typically the case in mass produced products. When taken into a Solid Modeler, the “history” of the model is available to designers, so any version may be referred back to at any time in the re-modeling process. Design changes or variations can then be easily made.

For this project, Geomagic Studio and SolidWorks were used to create a solid model of the scan data.  Geomagic Qualify Inspection software was used to compare the scan of the part to the CAD model showing discrepancies in a 3D color error map. While in this case the scan data was used for confirming the accuracy of the reverse engineered model that was developed, this same scan data could also be used for inspecting manufactured parts against the intended perfect CAD model for insuring manufacturing tooling and production processes.

With laser scanning, millions of coordinates from the free-form grip shapes were gathered in minutes.

The Results:
The ultra-precise Wenzel CMM measuring capability ± 0.0002” combined with the high-speed laser scanning technology make the scanning process fast, automated, user-friendly, and ultimately less expensive than using other measurement methods because of the complexity of the various sections of the paintball gun and different purposes the data will be used for.

To reverse engineer a specialized grip, the data set of the hand grip was used.  If the grip had been measured only with traditional contact measurement methods, the process would have taken several hours and yielded only several hundred data coordinates. With laser scanning, millions of coordinates from the free-form grip shapes were gathered in minutes. The total topography of the grip was completely recreated and thus, the specialized grip could be perfectly matched to the form. At critical transitional points, the touch probe could be engaged for verifying measurements.

In much the same way, the stock was scanned, including the butt end, so that perfectly matched custom stocks and stock extensions could be mated to them.  Creating rapid-fire triggers also takes the exact surface data of the trigger mechanism so that it fits and functions well mechanically, and laser scanning provides high-accuracy measurements of freeform triggers that were hand modeled, allowing for precise CAD replication for mass production.
 
Laser Design’s integration of the SLP laser scanning probe technology with the high mechanical accuracy of the Wenzel CMM brings the best of both worlds to one measuring system. Existing Wenzel CMM users will be amazed at the time and cost savings and the superb accuracies of using non-contact 3D laser measurement with Wenzel’s laser scanning partner, Laser Design, Inc. The more complex or freeform the part, the greater the benefits of laser scanning.

Laser Design, Inc. is a supplier of ultra-precise, 3D laser scanning systems and services. Used for capturing the 3D shape of objects with complex geometries and free-form surfaces, Laser Design’s Surveyor line of automated and portable scanning systems are ideal for 3D scanning applications involving inspection and reverse engineering of complex shaped plastic and metal parts.

Laser Design also operates GKS Inspection Services, an in-house service bureau division offering complete 3D scanning, reverse engineering, and dimensional inspection services.

For more information, email sales@laserdesign.com or visit www.laserdesign.com