Exacting Standards

This article discusses integration of handcrafted parts into computer-aided design (CAD)-designed bikes. The digital duplication process started when Harley Davidson sent Schaefer an assembly-ready Dyna Wide gas tank. It took two days of work to prepare the tank and scan it with an ATOS white-light 3D scanner, made by GOM mbH (for Gesellschaft fur Optische Messtechnik) in Braunschweig, Germany. Using Geomagic Studio, the software from Raindrop Geomagic, Advanced Design Concepts first converted the point cloud to a polygonal model. The 3D point cloud data were brought into Geomagic Studio, software from Raindrop Geomagic of Research Triangle Park, North Carolina. Using Geomagic, ADC first converted the point cloud to a polygonal model. The next step of processing created a non-uniform rational b–spline (NURBS) model. Digitizing the Dyna Wide gas tank represented the first time that Advanced Design Concepts had used Geomagic Studio on a Harley-Davidson job. According to an expert, the company now has three people devoted to working with the program.