Go to 2:00 in
If you could scan a board to that degree of accuracy (less than human hair accuracy), then a board shape can basically be totally mapped with a scanner (except for centre of gravity).
It makes possible a global database of every board ever made with rider opinions. Running queries across the shapes could open up an entire new way of designing boards - as a user you could pick attributes from different boards or pick up a shape that you liked and tweak it.
Then supposing materials science allows the printer to make a board that is strong and light enough.... this might not be so far fetched in ten years time- the guys in 2011 video below are making a wrench out of composites here. It looks like 3d printers could drive composite technology quite a long way.... or maybe they'd just shape blanks. Either way, 3d printers run on really small production runs (like windsurfing boards) so the manufacturers could start using them.
Has anyone 3d printed a board?
, and 3d robots operating the 3d printers , I can imagine where we will be in 10 years time well we wont have to worry about it here in Australia because we dont manufacture anything
At work there is one of these Z printers, a 150 I think though I can check next week. We are quite disappointed with it. The brochures and videos had all these amazing pictures of high quality stuff printed out on it.
$50K later we have this machine that prints out chalky, abrasive toy that looks like its been made by an eight year old out of some dodgy playdough. No way would you want a board made in one of these things right now.
, and 3d robots operating the 3d printers , I can imagine where we will be in 10 years time well we wont have to worry about it here in Australia because we dont manufacture anything
Google found this
www.nextengine.com/
$3k
Not sure whether it would be able to pick up rail shape and vee, but it could probably do volume distribution
Edit: This place is in town. I'm going to ask them how much they'd charge to scan my board and if it is reasonable, I'll do it and post the file here.
3dprintersuperstore.com.au/collections/3d-scanners
There are different types of 3d printers commercially available. Some are small and need to be assembled from a kit. Some like the Z printers are about as big as a old juke box and cost about $50k.
I'd imagine a 3d printer big enough to print a board would have to be huge and would cost a fortune.
Been watching 3d printing with a bit of interest, hoping to get a cad program for a fin and send the cad to a 3d printer for a split mould. I'm guessing the split mould could be anything from a solid plastic to a semi rigid silicone. I have been told it's a tad expensive though? I'd like to know what they mean by expensive!
Car companies been doing White light ( photo scanning) of car models for quite a few years. That's how we get our hand shaped full size clay models into the CAD systems.
There are quite a few different systems out their that can do it.
They create a cloud of 3D points, generally transferred to a CAD or CAM system as an SDL file. You can run cutter paths straight off them but for any meaningful design iterations or engineering they still need to be remodelled.
SDL files are heavy, a pain in the butt to use and you cannot really manipulate the data, it is just a mesh.
i do some work for a company that has a 3d printer, they showed me a component produced from it for prototyping purposes and i didn't realize it was a mock up until they told me.
on the board front.
there is a guy in caloundra that can scan boards into cad format. he can also cut blanks. nxs sailboards have their board blanks cnc milled at the guys factory. still need hand finishing.
my boards have been scanned there.
not sure why people think you need to scan the boards, there are loads of free software packages which allow you to model boards in 3D. This represents the board as a collection of simple curves not a load of points (how laser scanning works), even if you wanted to copy a board, you would be better off just inputting the dimensions into one of these programs.
no doubt one will, or probably already can, print a board. But if you wanted a composite construction, some kind of fibers in resin (not the composite mentioned in the video..), I think 3D printers are a long way off.
You could also argue that its quite inefficient to print such a high volume of bulk material, such as EPS foam. Basically I think its possible to print a 3D board, but with a different construction.
I think what would be cool about scanning is the amount of information that you could take in about a board.
The relationship between centre of volume, maximum width, front footstrap, mast foot, rail shape at that point etc could get you a long way that you couldn't get by looking at boards (or maybe you could, just not without a lot of time and skill)
If we uploaded every board in use at the moment, rated the classics (the boards that nearly everyone gets on with) and then allowed allcomers to try to isolate the parameters that made them great boards.
Maybe this is too scientific but it could be interesting
This is a Nurbs surface model. Model accurate to .0001mm so I think no problem getting all the required detail
Can be output into multiple file types. Depending on the operating system of the CNC they can run off nurbs surface or if not you can output an SDL file. The problem with SDL is the file size, this in native form is about 600K the high resolution SDL would be 100 meg.
Stuart Truscott at Cheeky Monkey Boards has been cutting the blanks off my files converted to Igs format no probs on his home built CNC.
Yep, realise that.
I have had a play with some of the free download board softwares. They are adequate, a bit hard to do the nose and tail properly and forget anything like complex tail cutouts but for somebody who wants to mess around a bit they are fine.
Getting back to 3D printing, not sure we will see a board done this way for a long time. Boards are made with varied density materials and you need to be able to place fibres in the correct orientation, in the correct spot, vary fibre layer thickness and type.
For the time being CNC machined blanks, rocker jigs and/or moulds created from CAD files is about as high tech as we can expect.
Ginger, for somebody like me who farts around with board design I would love to access information on every board built, would be very interesting. Impossible to just look at a board scan file though and say "that works because of that", design is always a complex thing, multiple factors effecting performance and always a compromise, making it good at one thing always makes it not as good at something else.
Not sure the OEMs will be offering up their IP, the result of hard work and huge investment any day soon though, nor should they!!!
Most board manufacturers would have a database similar to being discussed. If you go to a custom manufacturer to build you a board, I guess you are essentially buying their service to peruse their database, and build you a board based on this knowledge. They aren't any more expensive than production boards, and most of them have pretty short lead times, so not really sure what sort of problem we are trying to solve here with the 3D printing.
Gotta agree with mr. love about the materials side of things. Thou, they are using computer controlled placement of fibre rovings on high tech sails (North 3DL / Avanti), it would be within current tech to do the same on boards, whether or not it makes economical sense i'm not sure.
Gestalt, something like Rhino3D would be a good investment 
The 3D scanning part is actually fairly straightforward and can be done at home for free (or for very little). The precision is given as 0.1% of object size. This is perhaps not "less than a human hair", but a board can be scanned in portions which are then assembled. This should give acceptable sub-millimeter accuracy. I've used mostly structured light, because it is much quicker and the most reasonable option when scanning my family members. A line-laser however gives better precision, but takes much longer. This shouldn't be a problem if the object doesn't have to breathe.
The scanning process is described here: www8.hp.com/us/en/campaign/3Dscanner/overview.html?jumpid=va_t1345uf8k6 The board would have to be dusted in flour or talcum powder first, in order to give consistent laser reflection. A corner of a room/garage would have to have the calibration dots painted on. I've got a fairly large MDF box built for the purpose, but it won't be large enough for a board. Some people have used the same process to scan their cars:
Justin, the dilemma of the modern designer. Chose the career as I enjoyed and was good at drawing s..t and ended up having to be a IT expert. I used to get ink on my fingers now I just get my nu.ts fried by electrons!!!
Lol that's golf martin. And oh so TRUE!
Jeez bloody auto text. I mean gold not golf :-)
I'm learning Rhino at the moment, it's pretty good for some stuff, but can be a pain when it comes to lofting complex shapes, or closing your polysurfaces into a solid. For example I had to start a wing from scratch because one of my starting wing profile shapes (given to me) was open by .0002mm.
Re 3D printing - the materials are quite expensive at moment. No way you'd do a whole windsurf board. It's perfect for complex 3d shapes of a size you can hold in 1 hand.
Re point clouds - laser scanning can be amazing - ie I've seen where you can read "flat" signs due to slight embossing or sticker width. But the commercial guys I've talked to have a large team of cad monkeys in indo or phillipines that essentially trace everything to create your shapes from the points. Your final accuracy will only be as good as their tracing skills.
If you google autocad 123catch they have a cloud based thing where they'll make a 3D object for you from photos... worth a look.
