Geomagic and Konica Make Giants Out of Europe's Soccer Stars

By Bob Cramblitt

Image courtesy of 3D Culture

Last June, during the final stages of the Euro 2008 soccer championship, a huddle of 56-foot-tall star players from nine national teams greeted travelers who passed through Zurich’s central rail station. The 11 towering players—decked out in their national uniforms courtesy of Adidas—were built by 3D Culture of Oestrich-Winkel, Germany, under contract to the athletic shoe and clothing manufacturer.

3D Culture scanned the head of each player with a Konica Minolta VIVID 910 3D scanner.  The resulting point clouds—comprising millions of discrete points representing the 3D coordinates of each player’s head—were imported into Geomagic Studio software. Within Geomagic Studio, the point clouds were processed to remove artifacts generated during scanning, then automatically converted to polygons.  The polygon models were then edited to remove anomalies and to extend, trim, and clean up areas as necessary.  The players’ bodies were created in the same way, although only one body was scanned to produce generic models from the neck down.

The polygon models were converted by Geomagic software into high-quality surface models, which were used to drive a numerical control (NC) milling machine.  The heads and body parts were machined from hard foam, then painted and transported to Zurich for installation.

More Info:
Geomagic
Research Triangle Park, NC

Konica Minolta Sensing
Ramsey, NJ