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TrackScan Metronor T3DMC
Render of the TrackScan device, co-developed by Metronor and ScanTech, and distributed through the UK by T3DMC, being applied on the exterior of a car.
The 3D Measurement Company (T3DMC) has signed a deal to resell Metronor’s portable 3D metrology equipment in the UK as it expands its distribution offering.
Based in Shropshire, UK, T3DMC was established nearly six years ago as a 3D scanning and measurement service provider, but through the last 12 months has begun to provide purchasable products from two OEMs. The first distribution agreement the company agreed was with ScanTech, after an initial meeting at Control 2018.
It is a move that has looked to maintain and secure the relationships it has built up with its customers over the last six years. The company has seen some service users eventually decide to bring 3D scanning equipment in-house, while others have had demands that were not feasibly negotiated with T3DMC’s primary scanning system: an open-source and automated set-up which teams the GOM ATOM Scan Box 6130 with a robotic arm.
With portable 3D scanners and CMM (coordinate measurement machine) systems now able to acquire via T3DMC, the company can not only recommend from the dozen products it resells when a company wishes to bring the technology in-house, but can now also tackle the jobs it couldn’t before, like capturing data from the interior of vehicles. Having that range of capabilities covered was of the utmost importance for T3DMC.
“Something I didn’t want to happen within our company is there be any conflict of interest, everything needed to work together. That goes for our service side and our product side,” Adam Stanley, T3DMC Managing Director, told TCT at the recent Advanced Engineering event. “Services, we’ve got the automated solution which is in a class of its own for what it is trying to do. Then we have our portable handheld systems, ideal for going out to site, getting inside car interiors, or aircraft interiors, and then we’ve got the optical CMM which is if you don’t need to scan the entire surface, because sometimes it can be time-consuming to do that. You just need a few key features.
“We’ve got eight core products, but they can be extended into a range of 12. It’s quite a comprehensive group of products, but they all complement each other.”
It has made available a host of portable 3D scanning products independently produced by ScanTech and Metronor, and the TrackScan Solo and Duo devices which have been co-developed by the two vendors. The TrackScan product series enables the user to shoot and capture easily, has a measurement volume of 153m3, can scan fragile objects, and has portable CMM functionality. Other new additions to the portfolio include the Metronor Solo and Duo portable CMM systems, which allow accurate 3D measurement with one or two cameras and a handheld probe, and the Metronor One which has been designed for high precision data capture.
T3DMC will welcome these Metronor products in the coming weeks, and when they do, will not only offer them to its customer base, but use them internally to enhance its service offering. When the ScanTech devices were brought in they were tested and benchmarked against the company’s GOM data, and adjudged to have performed well in certain applications. These scanners included the Prince, which has dual laser configuration, the Axe, which has integrated photogrammetry, and the iReal, which allows users to scan in high definition and colour.
“For portable scanning, the handheld systems are really king for us now. Our automated system is still a fantastic piece of equipment. We love to use it because of what it is capable of doing, so we use that as much as we can, but the beauty from a service point of view is we [can] use all of the systems,” said Stanley. “What’s the best tool for the job, that’s the tool that we’ll use.”
“That’s the message that we can give to the customers. We can say we’ve used this system ourselves so that’s how we know it will work for you, rather than us trying to impose a system on them. We did a similar application to you a couple of months ago at a customer site, these were the challenges that we faced, this is why we came to the decision of using that system, and this is why we believe it will work for you. We can use the machines ourselves and then we can translate that message to the customer. In that way, we are hopeful that it simplifies the decision-making process for people.”
These people are generally familiar with T3DMC. The company has seen 90% of its customers return to use their services again, including the likes of Jaguar Land Rover, Rolls Royce, JCB, and GKN. It, of course, wants to maintain that figure, but also attempt to claw back some of the 10% that haven’t returned. By adding a series of handheld and CMM products to its service, and offering them as purchasable products through its new distribution arm of the business, T3DMC is hoping to cover all bases, whether customers want to pay for the products or pay for the services.
“We want to keep our customers, because we have worked hard to build relationships with trust, where they do rely on us,” Stanley concluded. “They call us for advice, ‘how do I measure this? I’m having problem with the data, what would you suggest?’ And we’re all engineers at the company so we love that sort of stuff. We are project-based engineers. Every single one of us. We enjoy those conversations and we want to be able to continue them.”
