LMI Technologies has signed an agreement to acquire 100 per cent of the shares of 3D3 Solutions, a leading supplier of 3D scanning software and hardware products based in Burnaby, Canada.
The takeover deal will result in the integration of 3D3 by LMI Technologies under the LMI brand. Following the acquisition, LMI will supply 3D scanning, visualisation and measurement solutions for both inline factory automation and offline 3D scanning markets such as reverse engineering and 3D printing.
3D3 staff will continue development of HDI 3D scanners and FlexScan3D, a leading PC application offering sophisticated 3D acquisition, visualisation and mesh processing. ‘The simplicity of building precise and complete 3D datasets sets us apart from everyone in the 3D scanning market today. We are excited to integrate our 3D processing technology with LMI’s sensor design expertise to build a formidable offering for customers,’ said Thomas Tong, president of 3D3 Solutions.
LMI’s Gocator 3D smart sensor product family delivers scanning, measurement, and control logic in a single industrial sensor package suitable for broad use in factory automation where non-contact quality inspection of widgets is required. ‘Integrating 3D3’s mesh processing algorithms into Gocator will deliver a new level of capability such as comparing scanned parts to a golden part or CAD model, a key requirement by factories to ensure parts with hundreds of features are rapidly inspected for manufacturing errors,’ said Terry Arden, CEO of LMI Technologies. ‘In addition to enabling fast 3D inspection on Gocator, we see FlexScan3D as the platform to deploy both our 3D measurement tools and 2D HexSight machine vision library. This will give our customers an exceptional PC-based solution for high-end inspection applications where multi-core PC processing is required.’
With the acquisition of 3D3, LMI will expand into new markets such as medical (dental, ear, foot, face and body scanning), entertainment (gaming, special effects, and animation), manufacturing (reverse engineering, fast prototyping with 3D printing), and the arts (archival, reproductions) by using 3D3’s existing reseller channel network and delivering next-generation scanner products suitable for OEM customers.
