White light scanning - An Introduction

White light scanning, or else known as WLS, is a technique used to accurately measure physical objects which would be unable to be measured through more traditional methods e.g. a plane part, a tomb or a face.

Once the object has been scanned a completely accurate 3d image is then produced which measures every single tiny bit of the objects surface area.
For example, if a piece of paper was scanned, something you think is extremely flat and smooth; it would be able to show you all the teeny tiny bumps and ridges along the surface.

You would think thatthis kind of machine would need to be huge in order to scan things such as tombs but this isn’t true.White light scanning machines are actually rather small. This is becausethey need to betransported to various locations and often moved around static objects in order to scan every inch of the item.

Some of the uses of white light scanners are actually very serious. For example if a plane crashes or malfunctions due to an element of its structure breaking or a bird flying into the engine, a scanner can reproduce an exact copy of the dimensions of the original piece. The same can be applied to the racing car sector. When items are moving so quickly and everything depends on how aerodynamic they are this is very important.

As you can see, white light scanning is a very interesting topic and has allowed us to perfectly measure an amazing amount of otherwise immeasurable, opening the way to a whole list of potential ideas and developments.