As any nature lover can attest, water has a certain appeal. Its soothing chatter, its refreshing coolness. Yet despite its restorative qualities, water isn’t always inviting, especially to those with physical limitations. Recognizing this, Mark Schmidtke devised a way to turn kayaks and other small watercraft into more accessible vehicles. Using a full ecosystem of 3D Systems’ technologies, Mark has commercialized a custom mount system to add trolling motors to kayaks.
Although the idea for PowerUp Kayaking was born out of Mark’s work on a single kayak, he realized he could easily market his product if he could make it adaptable to a wide range of watercraft. To do this, he would need to create a custom interface between the mount base plate and the kayak’s surface.
After a careful round of Internet research, Mark landed on the Sense 3D Scanner for its ease of use and overall cost effectiveness. Recently updated and re-released, the next generation Sense now incorporates the Intel® RealSense™ camera array, offering significant improvements to color scanning as well as better scanning range. The Sense software features enhanced 3D data editing and includes a direct upload link to Sketchfab for users to publish their 3D data.
Mark used his Sense to retrieve a digital framework for the kayak interface. Once scanned, he carved out a snugly fitting contour from a plain block mount using the Boolean subtraction process of Geomagic® Design. Keeping in the same fluid digital workflow, Mark then manufactured his design in durable Nylon using the CubePro® 3D printer – all from the comfort of leaving his desktop workstation.
Check out the video below to see how PowerUp Kayaking came to life, and visit our website to discover other opportunities being uncovered with Sense 3D scanning.