“We’re going to build a 4-axis, motorized microscope, that can 3D scan very small things.
LadyBug is a picture-based 3D scanner, meaning that it’s primary function is to take photographs of an object from all sides, which can then be turned into a 3D model. What’s special about it is what it takes the pictures with, how it takes the pictures, and what it’s made of. First, it uses a high-powered USB microscope, which is both cheap and effective —- as long as you’re just looking at a tiny part of the object!
LadyBug solves this by using motors to do 3D scanning on top of 2D scanning! The images you see above were actually stitched together from many sub-images. You’ll see a lot more bugs throughout the guide; they make great subjects for the scanner because they are the right size, are easily found for free and dead, and of course have lots of really interesting colors and geometry.
The actual structure of the scanner is made entirely out of Blu-Ray players and 3D printed parts, all of which were designed in TinkerCAD. As you will learn, the author is a huge fan of both of these things.”