This 3D scanner is a collaborative project at BuildBrighton Makerspace with the aim of making digital technology affordable for community groups.
Scanners are being used in the fashion industry, to customise clothes design, in the games industry for virtual reality and in gyms to monitor health. If they are also available in makerspaces, which provide access to tools for production, there could be more potential for social innovation.
I am going to use the scanner to help me design clothes. To start with, I’ve sliced my model using free software, and laser cut a dressmakers dummy out of cardboard that is my exact personal body shape. Next, I’m planning to see what clothes look like on a 3D model in VR, before I commit to making them.
Santander gave me a grant of £1000 to build the scanner, as a University of Brighton Digital Award. We spent more than that prototyping different options, but as part of our design brief we’ve made sure the final version could be replicated within that budget. At that price, other community groups may be able to raise funds to build something similar.
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