The Eyes... 3D scanning-reverse "designeering" in Solidworks

The Eyes… - 3D scanning – reverse “designeering” in Solidworks

Today’s headlight design is really complex and lot’s of attention is put into it. It creates the “eyes” and therefore also the character of any vehicle front.

I’m not planning to do a custom headlight design in this project, so I choose to integrate an existing motorcycle headlamp that I thought had potential to fit quite nice into the design of my FF motorcycle. As always budget was important so I bought a second-hand quite aggressive looking Ducati 848 headlight.

To integrate it in the rest of the body work, I first attempted to reconstruct the complex geometry by making photo’s of the orthogonal views on a rectangular grid, correct the perspective deformation in Photoshop, and use these images as background in Solidworks to create a simplified 3D mock-up.  After being sure of the potential of a nice integration, I decided to have the headlight 3D scanned. The guys of 3dinfinity.be in Maldegem were able to do it in a short term, and budget friendly,  thanks to Simon for his perfect service ! The matte spots on the photo below are  the remains of the vanishing" scanning spray", that allows glossy and transparent surfaces to be scanned.

After the postprocessing of the scan, I could reconstruct the main interfacing surfaces, and use these as a base for the surrounding geometry.