Armand’s story really begins in the first half of 2017 in the design phase of building his scanner.

His build consisted of planning out a model capable of scanning objects human sized to a sophisticated level of detail. What was important was that the scanner needed to do be able to scan objects like people on a turntable, from a range of angles striking poses. The design phase only lasting a few months put Armand to a tight schedule with a deadline looming. He recalls this being an intensely stressful period: “I had to understand what will I have to improve and how will I build that”. He stressed that the purpose of the scanner was to be an improvement on the technology before it otherwise it served no use.

As Armand explains: “The most accurate technology that we have is to scan people on the turntable, so basically people take a pose and they just turn on the turntable.” This process involves dozens of cameras fitted to a rack that continuously shoots images of the object so that those photos can be mapped together to create the full 3D image.

He used the term ‘photogrammetry’ adding, “Each photo that has been taken are classified by their order of resemblance. If two pictures look really similar its probably because there is only a slight angle of difference between the two points of shot.“

The build phase proved to be tricky for Armand as he was forced to manage his expectation. “I had some issues that I had to take care of and you know think about some different solutions that I first imagined.”

Armand found that his early design, while capably scanning smaller objects, required a lot of work in scanning larger items or people.At the end of the sixth month period Armand had a fully operational 3D scanner, which filled the mandatory requirement of scanning human sized objects. The last few weeks leading up to the 6 month mark was a frantic time at iMakr in which there were many false dawns and setbacks for the readiness of the scanner.

Armand’s bottom line about the scanner was that it worked and he felt ‘proud’ at what he had accomplished.