Bo Helmrich, the owner of Digitize Designs stopped by the show today. We talk about the fun stuff we missed not being at Formnext and then we dove into the weeds with 3D scanning. We talk about the differences of scanners and the fundamental principles of choosing a scanner according to need and budget.
Bo's vast knowledge and ability to communicate make this very easy to understand. You will have a good sense of a direction you can go after listening to this episode.
Bo Helmrich, the owner of Digitize Designs stopped by the show today. We talk about the fun stuff we missed not being at Formnext and then we dove into the weeds with 3D scanning. We talk about the differences of scanners and the fundamental principles of choosing a scanner according to need and budget.
Bo's vast knowledge and ability to communicate make this very easy to understand. You will have a good sense of a direction you can go after listening to this episode.
Welcome to season six of the prosthetics and orthotics podcast. We are absolutely thrilled to have you on board. We're talking to experts who know their stuff, the patients who've experienced these technologies firsthand, the vendors who provided the tools and the thought leaders shaping the future. Together, we will uncover the ways to make the lives of those relying on these incredible technologies even better. We hope these discussions are going to be the highlight of your day.
Speaker 1:Welcome to the prosthetics and orthotics podcast with Brent Wright and Joris Peels. Now I'm a little jealous because Joris is actually at form next. So it's going to be myself and Bo Helmerick from Digitized Designs today. So I'm really excited to have Bo on the show. We've known each other for a very long time and he really got me into this idea of scanning being the foundation of what you do.
Speaker 1:A good scan, good data, turns into good outcomes. On the backside, bo is a mechanical engineer and I'm not going to hold it against him. He'd go to Clemson. He lives in the Greenville area. Digitized Designs is in the Greenville area super cool building, so if you have a chance and you're in the area, please go visit.
Speaker 1:He also is one of the foremost, I would say, experts about scanning and even he. This is the stuff he lives, breathes and eats, and I'm really excited to dive into that because I think for us and for our audience and for our listeners, people see all these different scanners. You have something from the iPhone scanner, where you can get a free app, all the way up to something like the $100,000 scanners, and then beyond for the metrology and the stuff that goes into aerospace. I think it's going to be really great to break down what makes a good scanner and then we can talk about pricing and such. So welcome to the show, bo. Thanks for having me on. Brett, it's pretty obvious that you're not at Fortbext. I am not and I am not at Fortbext, so let's talk about what we're missing out. First. I saw some news from ArtTech releasing the micro, so can you share a little bit about that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so it is brand new. It was launched today, I believe, officially. So I still don't know it ton, but the little bit I do know it's been a huge improvement from the micro one Twice as accurate. It's five micron accuracy, which is crazy. So 25 microns is the thousands of an inch, so 20% of that, which I think is two tenths of a thou plus or minus. It's crazy. Wow, yeah, that is crazy. Yeah, you start to get to like blood cell level once you start to get down that size.
Speaker 2:But super accurate, automated scanning. You put the part on the platform, you press, go, it spins and dances around and it's just super easy to just kind of set it and forget it. But the biggest thing that stood out to me was the field of view is so much bigger than what was on the micro one. It's 20 centimeter by 20 centimeter by 16, something like that, which for me, in inches, I actually had to look up the conversion. It was like eight by eight by six inches, something like that, which is, volume-wise, 18 times bigger than what it was before. So way more flexible and super easy to use and super high quality. Scams, really exciting.
Speaker 1:That is super exciting. Does that come with a massive price tag? Have they released any pricing information?
Speaker 2:So they have. I was actually surprised. So micro one was about 30 grand. Micro two is 22 and a half. I expected it to be the same or more especially with the improved events, but actually come down a little bit.
Speaker 1:Wow, Wow. And so in that space you've got the 200, essentially eight by another six or eight. Is this kind of a game changing, kind of leading edge for that volume and that specific resolution?
Speaker 2:In terms of if you need that level of accuracy and that level of detail. There's really nothing else out there that's able to do that. You quickly get up into 100 grand plus to start achieving the same numbers, same accuracy, all that. So it is really exciting from that standpoint.
Speaker 1:Okay, that's cool. And then there's been some other scanning news coming out you care to share about any?
Speaker 2:of that. You mean like a shining 3D scanner, yeah, yeah, so that's super cool. We don't work with any of the shining stuff, but I got a couple buddies that do so. I'm going to have to get my hands on one of them soon, but it's a blue laser handheld 3D scanner that does not require targets, which is super cool. That's very unique.
Speaker 2:Traditionally, with handheld laser scanners that are metrology-grade, high accuracy, like a thousandth of an inch, you have to have targets and in many cases a lot of targets. So those little retro-selective little circle dots, little stickers that you have to put all over a part. The scanner has to see those dots, those stickers, to know where it is in 3D space, so it can actually stitch together while it's scanning. But this scanner it's got 98 blue laser lines, just a ton of lasers does require dots, so you get to scan freely. So that is. That's a game changer for part of people. The worst part about those scanners is the targets. There's advantages, but it takes a lot of time to put them on and then take them off.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean I hate that I'm missing some on some of the other form. Next news I've seen a couple of things with the new materials, even some new machines coming out. It appears that the acquisition market is still alive and well, with Nexa and Ascension getting together pretty wild. And then, just bringing it a little bit home to news in the O&P field is it appears that Medicare is now going to be paying for some robotic style prostheses for people that have had strokes and things of that nature and even some of the exoskeleton things, and so we're going to have to be on a fast track to incorporating that as part of our business model.
Speaker 1:So that's going to be very interesting and that's going to actually dovetail really well into this idea of custom scanning and some of the stuff that you have, bo. So I think even more and more this idea of custom and robotics. And now we're going to have so many insurance companies paying for some of this, because insurance companies follow what Medicare's guidelines typically are and so, as Medicare says, hey, this is something that we're going to pay for, other insurances follow and it's a great thing. It's great for patients, it's also great for innovation. So I'm really excited about hearing and seeing some of that stuff come down the pike.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's super cool, man, and I will say just a, I guess, kind of a sidebar I think what you do is so cool, and just all the custom and ant prosthetics of the stories, success stories and just you know, I'm fortunate enough like I don't need any prosthetics, at least not at this point. But I can imagine that I've heard so many stories about just how difficult it is to find things that are comfortable, and it's something you got to deal with every day, and the technology you put into it, and a lot of other people too, to advance it and just make them better, I think is just so cool. So that's fantastic, it was.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so that's cool. Well, and I always tell people too, like this really is a team effort. You know, I get the benefit of putting all this stuff together, but it's it is people like you, technology like this, that helps harness some of that stuff. I mean, if we wouldn't have, you know, met a while ago, I have no idea where I would be. I would probably be trying to make an iPhone scanner work or something like that. But you helping us out, getting some of the stuff, the art tech, some of the training stuff, all that it really has been a game changer for, you know, not only our clinic, but I think it also has been inspiring for others to look at that technology. So it takes, it takes everybody to have these great outcomes, and I think it's. I think that is really neat. Yeah, for sure, for sure, so okay.
Speaker 1:So we talked about form. Next a little bit of news. So let's, let's hop in and talk a little bit about how you got started kind of on the road for digitized designs. So this is the other interesting thing about the Orthotics and Prosthetics podcast. We have people that are actually not in the field that listen to the podcast. They are engineers or they're looking for ways that they can have impact, like what we do in the prosthetic and orthotic field, but also use their engineering background. So I think, with you being a mechanical engineer and then obviously being on the scanning side of things, I think it would be beneficial for people to kind of hear your journey, not only in school, but then how it landed into finally organizing and setting up digitized designs.
Speaker 2:Yeah, for sure, man. It was funny. It's a couple small things that kind of kicked it off and just got me in that direction, which is crazy, and it's cool to look back to see. If one or two of those things didn't happen, like you said, I have no idea what I'd be doing today. But I went to Clemson. I was mechanical engineering.
Speaker 2:I had big aspirations and dreams of being an automotive design engineer and going into school and very quickly, about a year in, I realized that I didn't really like the engineering stuff as much as I thought I would. There were parts of it that I like. I mean, I love technology. I love shiny toys. Just getting to play with some of those tools are amazing, but I want a big fan of all the nitty gritty. I did like the solid work part of it, though. So once I was getting close to being down with school, I still didn't know what I wanted to do. I just knew it wasn't engineering. I was talking to anybody and everybody at their career fairs, even like Waffle House, for example, just to try to find my way, figure out what I wanted.
Speaker 2:I came across a company called ScanSource in Greenville. They're just a general distribution company of different technologies, pos systems and things, but I won't go too deep into the story, but essentially, the CEO of ScanSource introduced me to 3D printing technology. I'd never heard of it before. At that point I got obsessed with 3D printing. That was the coolest thing ever. I mean, it was game changing. This was 2012, I think at that point. So it was about to start blowing up in the news and everybody thought they were going to have on their dining room table or whatever. So I got obsessed with it and I decided I wanted to get into 3D printing and hopefully sell 3D printers. Scansource was starting a 3D division. I ended up getting a job with them selling 3D printers. They also had 3D scanners and I didn't know what 3D scanners were and not many people on our team did.
Speaker 2:And over time I kind of took to the 3D scanning technology, ended up being kind of the 3D scanning guy when it came to sales and business development and my job was basically to go help recruit companies to sell our tech 3D scanners. Our tech was the brand we were carrying and again fell in love with the technology, became obsessed. I do have a bit of an obsessive personality when it comes to those kind of things. So I tried to learn everything I could about it and my job was to recruit companies to sell the scanners, help train them on how to use them, how to sell them. I did a lot of help them with demos and got to the point where I was having a hard time setting up a dealer in the southeast where we are in South Carolina and I always kind of had the itch, if you will, to start a company and felt like I saw an opportunity, so left and started digitized designs. And you know, seven, over seven years later, here we are.
Speaker 1:That's amazing. So, and then you share with us a little bit about digitized designs as well. So, yes, you carry scanners, but you also have some reverse engineering capabilities, or a lot of reverse engineering capabilities as well. But just for our listeners, yeah, share a little bit about digitized designs. And just what is your wheelhouse?
Speaker 2:Well for sure. So I tell people we're a 3D scanning company, very broad state that we fell. 3d scanners and hardware and software, excuse me, and I'll name drop a couple. Our tech 3D we still carry them. They're what got us here. Always will love those guys. Scantact 3D they're handheld laser scanners.
Speaker 2:Barrow's a huge name in the industry, have other softwares like GeoMagic and Polyworks and some others as well. But we also do services too. So everything we sell and we offer services with them. And that doesn't always make sense for people to drop 20 grand, 50 grand, 100 grand, whatever it is, on the scanning solution If they only need it occasionally. So we'll come in and do the scanning for people and just give them the scans. Or if they need CAD data created from scans, we'll do that. We'll do the reverse engineering to create a step file or a solid work part file, whatever. We'll do inspections as well. So companies that's a huge application through scanning as well outside of the OMP world is inspecting parts for measuring it to make sure they're within tolerance and you know where they're out and by how much. All of that. So we do those services as well and then we do training and implementation as well.
Speaker 1:Okay, so very broad, that's cool. So you mentioned that you do the art tech scanners. So, and the scan tech scanners and then a couple of the softwares, just for our audience, can you take us down, like what, what makes the style of scanner, the style of scanner? Like you know, there's the structured light stuff, there's some of the stuff like what Apple's doing with Lidar, there's the laser stuff, there's some hybrid stuff. So just kind of dumb it down for you know, myself and for our listeners, of what these variety ways of capturing data are.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there's a few different styles. Just like with 3D printing, there's a few different styles of 3D printing as well. But with scanning there's kind of high level ones are structured light, and then you're going to have laser line 3D scanning. You've got Lidar, which is Tom of flight, and all their variations Apple has. You can scan with an iPhone now and they say it's Lidar. That's kind of its own conversation and but it's it's. The Apple phones are really good for scanning rooms and scenes. That's becoming a lot more popular in the forensics world as well, so that's really cool to see. There's a guy Eugene Lisco, I think his name up in Canada does some really cool things, really dive into the back end of everything that Apple lets you dive into with their 3D scanner, and he's got his own app and software and really suck all the juice out of it if you will. And just it's starting to replace some of the very high end scanners in the forensic world, which is really cool. But anyways, got a little distracted there.
Speaker 2:Structured light is most of the scanner from our tech. So the way that works it's a combination of a projector just basically a normal projector that projects a known pattern, and then you've got a camera watching that pattern. That pattern gets projected on an object and, depending on where it is, distance wise, it kind of bends into forms over the surface and the camera watching that's been in the form. Then it's done into measurements and typically it's a calibrated device. So they've had a calibrated board that has been hit from different distances so it does a bunch of math. People that are way smarter than us. We don't make any of them, we just sell them to be clear and know how to use them. But a lot of math to collect millions of measurements a second, sometimes two, three, four million measurements a second, which is crazy. Then you jump over to laser line scanners. You've got some handheld versions. You've got like the pharaoh arm as well also the rumor arm. Those work a little bit differently but the main principle stays the same as with what you have with structured light. You have lasers being projected and you've got cameras watching those lasers in the form over the surface and there's pros and cons to lasers versus a projected light system.
Speaker 2:Structured light, structured light historically has been slower and more sensitive to dark and shiny surfaces. You have to powder dark and shiny parts so they can actually scan. But the resolution has been a lot better. So the detail you get and the quality, the noise level, can be a lot higher with structured light traditionally. But the laser line scanners they've been faster but then have been a lot more resilient to hard to scan surfaces. So dark, shiny, even chrome surfaces now are very easy to scan for some of the newer blue laser re-scanners.
Speaker 2:And then I guess, if you go even farther, kind of what Apple's doing with the phones and the other LiDAR systems the more traditional LiDAR systems sit on a tripod and then it spins around and it scans the entire room and that's what people are using to renovate an old warehouse, for example. Go through, you scan the whole warehouse and you have that point file that it creates and then you have an as-built model that you can go in and do renovations and do planning based off of that, instead of old blueprints or no blueprints at all, that you take manual measurements and you miss a pipe or all kinds of crazy things that are in some of these buildings. You get that digital twin and digital twin being one of those terms that are being thrown around a lot these days, but that's becoming more and more common, even to replicate buildings and manufacturing facilities, as they use that for back mutation.
Speaker 1:Okay, now as far as is infrared, I know that that was big at one time with the structure sensors and such. How did that work? Or is that kind of like a dying?
Speaker 2:thing. No, infrared is still definitely a thing, still relevant. It falls into that structured light category. So structured light is a very broad term. It's just the projector and a camera. The infrared side goes into the light source for the projector. So there's white light, structured light scanning there's blue light. It's just a blue projection. Then you've got V-SOL, which is really an infrared based projection light source and that's invisible to the human eye, right? So we don't see a grid being projected, but the camera can see that infrared grid. So just a different light source. You get some pros and cons to it. Typically those can be used outdoors in direct sunlight because they don't get flooded out by the direct sunlight. But yeah, no, that's still very much a thing and that's what the iPhones are using, especially for the face detection as well is infrared.
Speaker 1:Okay, Okay, Very cool. Well, and I know you are very humble about your abilities and your team's abilities for scanning, but you guys have won some pretty cool awards too for scanning, which means that you're really good at what you do. But take our listeners down just a journey of how important it is to capture the good data and what really can take a good scanner or a bad scanner good, a good scanner bad, and what it takes to get a really good scan. Good foundation, you know, good data. What are the factors that make all that happen?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so there's a lot that goes into it and unfortunately, as of right now, there's really no one-thides fits all scanner. So there's so many different factors that come into play in terms of how big is your part and what detail do you need. What kind of accuracy and tolerance do you need to hold, how fast do you need to capture data? How mobile do you need to be? Do you need to be able to scan outdoors? You know all kinds of factors there, but so how you're going to use the data is important too. If you don't need crazy high detail, then you know like we talked about the micro-2, and that's probably overkill, probably not going to be a good fit. If you need to scan bigger parts for scanning the side of a van or you're scanning, you know, a limb like below the knee prosthetic rate, you don't need super high detail for those types of scans. So application is super important. But the old saying garbage in, garbage out holds very true with scanning. You want to make sure you have the right tool for what you need. If you need high detail and you use a low detail scanner, it's just not going to like provide a good product at the end of the day. So kind of matching the right scanner, right technology to what you're hoping to achieve is super important.
Speaker 2:And you got handheld scanners, got stationary scanners. The handheld scanners are becoming more and more popular. Just, they're sexy, right, they're mobile, they're fast. It's pretty intuitive. Just to wave it around. The RTX scanners I know we found those to be really useful in the OMP world. It's in terms of speed, flexibility, just ease of use, and the data quality too. It's not crazy overkill, but the data quality is really good, really accurate. Some of the other stuff, like if you tried to use an iPhone right to scan a small part, it's just not what it's paid for right now.
Speaker 2:I'm sure it'll continue to get better and you'll be able to scan small parts of a new bracket to print it at your house or something. One day you'll be able to do that with your phone, I'm sure, just like camera phones back in the day, right, super grainy, but it was cool because it was a camera on your phone. But now, I mean iPhones today are ridiculous. I'm sure we'll see a similar evolution with that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and speak a little bit to you. Know, you also carry the A-sub sprays, which has been a complete game changer for us, because we use these transparent sockets, test sockets, but then we also have sockets that say a patient has worn for years and years and years and they love it, but it's, you know, broken or almost broken or what have you. So we literally can spray this stuff in and scan, capture, not only the inside but the outside as well, and it disappears. How cool is that? So it's been great for us, because we were using all kinds of tricks, but you could never get rid of the white Right. So, yeah, share a little bit about how that's changed the game as well.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So powder sprays, top powder, baby powder has been used for years in the 3D scanning world. I mentioned before dark and shiny objects surfaces. Those have been really hard to scan historically transparent surfaces as well. And the reason is the way that most in these scanners work is it's projecting some sort of light onto the surface and the camera is watching that, whether it's the grid or the lines been in form over the surface, watching that to get the 3D measurements. If it's a chrome surface, that projected light hits it and the cameras are seeing reflections. If it's a black surface, black absorbed light. So it's just hard for the camera to see that projected light, projected pattern on the surface transparent goes right through. So with the powders, with the, historically you put like top powder on the surface to light it up, to give it a more matte white finish, which is ideal for scanning. Or if it's transparent, again it gives it a matte white surface to lay that projection on, so you can actually get really good scan data. Unfortunately, you ended up with powder everywhere and now we have a spray.
Speaker 2:The company's called ASOB. It's out of Germany Really cool guys. They actually the inventors of ASOB. They used to do 3D scanning all the time. He owned a 3D scanning service bureau over in Germany and he joked that every time he came home it was like he worked at a bakery. He was just covered in white powder everywhere, and it gets everywhere too.
Speaker 2:So not only on your clothes, but it gets in your computers and on your scanners and your work with lenses, and none of that's ideal. But with this ASOB scanning spray, you spray it on, it goes on matte white. It gives you a perfect ideal scanning surface. So your data looks awesome. But then the beautiful thing about this stuff is it just. It sublimates, it evaporates, leaving no residue on the surface. So spray it on to your thing and just let the parts sit air out for an hour or two and it's like it was never there. It was super cool. It's one of those things where people are still learning about it today. But once you start it's really it's hard to go back to just normal powder.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I was talking to somebody and they're like oh, we just use dry shampoo. And I'm like you don't get it yet.
Speaker 2:You got to try this stuff and you'll never go back, yeah, and yeah, and dry shampoo has been used as kind of a trick too for it to kind of evaporate. And you know, for the right application that could work. If you all need to hold tolerances and you don't really care about the surface finish as much and you go for general shape, it could work. It's easy to get. It's probably cheaper too. But when you're trying to take kind of, you try to get really high quality scans. That's when this stuff is awesome. It really is. It goes on nice and thin. You have good control over it. The dry shampoo it can. Just that's not what it's made for. So they don't really care about the controlled spraying and super even and all that. So yeah, it's a two different world, yeah.
Speaker 1:Well, I've got a brag on your company a little bit digitized designs, because you've done a lot, even on your website and such, where it's literally almost one click shopping. So you know, typically I will shoot you a call you or text you and say, hey, man, I want some spray or whatever. But I remembered or I had seen something that said that the A sub spray was online and do it. So I forget it was like one or two o'clock in the afternoon. I put the order in for the A sub spray. Literally instantly I get a thing back that says, hey, we're boxing up your stuff, and I think it was even within a couple of days the thing shows up. It was awesome, you know, and it saved, you know, saved a phone call and all that stuff. So good job on that. So for those that are listening, bo is I mean I think you're one of the only distributors in the US for this- spray right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, one of the few, I think we were probably the biggest. We stock a ton of it. We buy by the container from Germany. And yeah, thanks for the compliments on the website. We've actually we're out to launch a brand new website, so the e-commerce stuff especially is going to be even better, even easier. And yeah, just also anybody is interested in spray, use the code, digitize, get 5% off. Run a little special right now.
Speaker 1:Oh, how cool is that.
Speaker 2:Yes, thank you, and if you order by 10 am, ship same day.
Speaker 1:Wow, okay, cool deal. Let's talk a little bit about, you know, budgets for scanners. What can people expect, and does the saying you get what you pay for apply still in the scanning world, or is it really more? What do you need and what is your budget? And let's just try to get you close.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So that's a good question. I would say, man, like 10 years ago, you get what you pay for was an understatement and a 3D scanning world there was. Just there weren't that many options. If you are going to spend 20 grand on the scanner, you might as well spend $0 in the scanner. It just wasn't worth it at that point and then the more you spent from there, the better the quality.
Speaker 2:Now, fast forward to 2023. There's so many more options. There's so many more budget friendly options too. I mean, again, we don't sell Shining 3D, but that, that Einstein scanner For a thousand bucks, it's crazy, it's super good. It's still not as good as what you're going to get with a $20,000 scanner. But, man, before there was nothing in the 10,000 and under range that was going to give you any decent experience, any decent data. But, man, that Einstein is really, really impressive for what you get. So if you're looking to play around with this, I would highly recommend getting one of those. You know, sling it around a little bit and see what you can get. That one's cool, but it's also comes down to application too.
Speaker 2:We talked about it still today. I still know one size fits all. So there are some scanners like I talked about with the micro, for example gas wall parts. If you've got 100 grand to throw at, it still might not be a better scanner than what you're going to get with the micro for that particular application. So it really just depends. But there are. I mean there's options now at one grand with that nine star there's a couple options. There are five grand. Over the past year or two there's been more options at that 10 to 15 ring that are starting to get a lot better too. And then obviously there's tons of options at 20 grand plus. You can throw as much money as you want and then you can get into CT scanning too. That's multiple hundreds of thousands of dollars. That I'm a big believer in. I think CT scanning is only going to grow and become more, more capable too.
Speaker 1:Cool. So, and then, as far as like digitized designs, I know you, where, would you say you're the budget starts? So I think this is the other part that our listeners appreciate too is there is, yes, you can buy an iron star scanner for $1,000, but there's nobody that's going to show you how to do it. And it's a correct. You know you have no guide, you have no professional thing, and you know we have an iron star scanner and it's one of the ones in our Raleigh office. It's the ones they scan the outside of CAS. It does not scan the inside of CAS and it's not even close.
Speaker 1:But it was interesting. I had a patient come in this is about a month ago and I was just going to do a cover. So I just needed, you know, basic scan, and one of our clinicians is really good with it, and so I had her scan, not only his leg, but then the prosthesis that we're going to put the cover over. So you know, we scan the leg, that his real leg, and then what we do is we will mirror it over and then we'll scan it or put it onto the prosthesis, and the data looked great. I was like, wow, this is fantastic, I modify the socket for the cover and all that stuff and it's just off a little bit.
Speaker 1:You know, it's like it's not on the money, and so I had my ArtTech EVO with me and we spray the A-sub spray on it and like the data is just awesome, right, it's great and it's something that I know that I'm going to be right on the money with, and so that's the difference between a thousand dollars and twenty thousand dollars. But there's also this idea of, like, professional services that come in there. So I think you do kind of get what you pay for because you got somebody to call. But as far as your like digitized designs and that sort of thing, where would you guys say you kind of fall and start and then go up from there?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So pricing wise, pretty much the cheapest scanner we carry is twenty grand. Twenty grand and up from there, and then you can go a hundred grand. It kind of tops out at like a hundred and twenty thousand dollars, depending on the scanner, and then you can have all four on top of that. We're even getting into some robotic and automated scanning solutions, which goes up from there.
Speaker 2:But yeah, absolutely, it's a great point about. You know, Ionstar is great. Again, it's great for a thousand dollars and that is very relative. It's still not going to be near as good as your twenty thousand dollars scanner, just apples to apples. Accuracy can play a big part of it, workflow can play a big part of it. But yeah, there's people are going to support a thousand dollar scanner too. Right, because you know we love what we do, but we also don't do it for free either, and training is so important it's. This is new technology for those people new workflows, new software, and you can get the best scanner in the world. If you don't know how to use it correctly, you can have a bad experience and you can get bad data and it ends up just being an expensive paperweight. So we've that's one thing that we pride ourselves on for sure is for one.
Speaker 2:We don't just sell out of a catalog. Everything that we sell we use every day and we know it well. We're not going to sell something that we don't know well. We can't support properly and train people properly. And training is such a big deal. It's such a big deal for the have happy customers and not get angry phone calls. But also, you know we it's such a good feeling to when customers down two or three years down the road. We don't even hear from them. But no news is good news. Right, they're using it, they're loving it. It's because we got them set up right the first time and they're really getting their money's worth and out of their new tool. And that's what it is. When you get up to that 20, 30, $40,000 range, they're always toys right. We always find different ways to use them, but they're tools and you need to have the right tool for what you're doing and training is such a big part of it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. Well, let's start then just a little bit to what you know about the prosthetic and orthotic application side of things. And you know, keeping in mind that you carry the ArtTech scanners and the scan tech scanners. If somebody is looking to scan the body and some of the cast and some of the stuff that you've seen us do in the ArtTech line, you have the ArtTech Eva and the ArtTech Leo and the ArtTech spider. I'm not familiar with the scan tech line, but those ones I know have relevance in the prosthetic and orthotic industry. Is anything in that same? Well, let's start with those and then you can share with like hey, does the scan tech stuff actually have some relevance to our field? I always say, like, I love the ArtTech stuff because it combines the textures and the geometry together. Whatever they do in that math is incredible, it's crazy.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's crazy.
Speaker 2:And there's just nothing like it, and so I think that kind of puts us in its own thing and no targets, and those things are important to me Right, right, yeah, and just kind of just to touch on what you were talking about with ArtTech and what they're doing in real time the math and the algorithms, the way those work, the structured light. But to simplify, it's basically taking 3D pictures and with the Leo, many times it's taking like 25 frames a second, 25 3D pictures a second, and it's stitching those together with overlapping features in real time and it is just saying what it can do and really nobody is able to do it as well as they can without targets. But that's what makes the ArtTech scanners so good in the OMP world, so that they don't require targets and they scan really well without targets, because nobody likes to have to put stickers on yourself and kind of go that way. But in terms of scanning full body scans and even limb scans, that's really going to be better suited for the ArtTech Eva and the Leo. And the Leo is really the one that's becoming more and more popular. It's the newer scanner. It's really ArtTech would get mad at me for saying this it's the newer Eva.
Speaker 2:The Eva's been around for a while. The Leo's the newer version of it. Basically it's got the built-in screen, built-in battery, just hit the trigger button and just point and shoot and go. It's super fast and just in terms of being intuitive, for scanning tells that built-in screen is there. You're not having to look back at a computer screen or whatever. That's just how we've all been trained to take pictures with our phones, not the camera right in front of us. So super easy to use and you can capture limbs and things like that very quickly or very accurately.
Speaker 2:The spider, on the other hand, it's kind of a lot smaller field of view, so not great for scanning legs, arms, things like that.
Speaker 2:It's much more accurate than the Eva and Leo, but that also can bite you because small movements can create issues, because it can't really compensate for that as well as the Eva and Leo and it's just going to take so much longer because the field of view is so much smaller. But if you get into scanning ears actually, for example, so there's a doctor around California who will do some ear scanning for her. She does some prosthetics and implants for people that have these deformations in their ears. So we'll scan the good ear, if you will Not her, the data she creates, the implant and whatever kind of magic she does over there. It's really cool and then that's the procedure and that's the implant. We use the spider for that and that's only because the spider is so high detailed, replicating an ear and getting some of those intricate details and getting in that actual canal of your ears. It does really well with that, but anything bigger just not going to be a great fit.
Speaker 1:And what I'm gathering then from that is this Artex suite of scanners are great scanners. The Leo, if you can spring forward, it's kind of a. It's a great hybrid between the Eva. It's not going to get the detail of the spider, but it's. You're still gonna be able to do some reverse engineering with the Leo. It's wireless, you can take it with you and such. I mean it is a pain having all those wires with both the spider and the Eva.
Speaker 2:I used to feel like I was getting dressed and undressed every time I do a scan with the Eva, trying to be mobile because I'd have laptop in one hand and then you got cables going from the computer and like a battery on your hip that go over your shoulder, then to your scanner and your other hand and having to walk around. And it's just not bad once you get used to it. It's just a process.
Speaker 1:And I think you know, just for our industry. I think it's interesting. It wasn't too long ago that people were spending 60,000 plus on a scanner. So this idea of spending $20,000, like for an ArtTech Eva yes, it's a lot of money and we never wanna forget that it's a lot of money. But it is not only investment, but it will age well as well. Like this is a scanner that you can use for a long time. I mean, the ArtTech Eva's been out for a long time. Right, when was it introduced?
Speaker 2:Yeah, about 10 years ago.
Speaker 1:Okay. So I mean, a lot of those scanners are still going and they're gonna keep on going and bragging a little bit, not only on digitized designs, but ArtTech, their turnaround time for repairs on scanners. We've had a few oops with ours where we've pulled them off, cracked cases, stuff and, believe it or not, they were still scanning but it just wasn't as good and you wanna have as accurate data as possible, but that stuff turned around real quick and I think that's the other part of this conversation too is you get what you pay for? When it comes to that, that people are very responsive, especially because what level of dealer are you with them, with ArtTech?
Speaker 2:We're the top level. So gold certified ArtTech ambassador, something like that. Yeah, we've been the top. Yeah, whatever the top is, for a long time.
Speaker 1:No, yeah, yeah. So I think that's awesome there. So, for those that are listening, yes, $20,000 is a lot of money for a scanner, but it's still 30% of what we paid 10 years ago for way better performance. And then, if you can spring for the Leo, why not? And the ArtTech spider for our industry. There's really not a time that I can imagine people needing that unless they're doing like super high detailed fingers. But I actually get pretty good results with the EVA, especially with the ArtTech Studio 18, and whatever they do in that software is pretty incredible because that high, what is it? The HD reconstruction it's impressive. Well, really impressive.
Speaker 2:And to that ArtTech. Their software is so good there's. I think sometimes they pride themselves more as a software company than they do a hardware company and in a way it sounds kind of bad. But 3D scanning is really not that complicated from a hardware standpoint If you kind of step back. It's just it's projectors and cameras and projectors and cameras. They get better every year, sure, but it's really it's a backend stuff. It's the software that makes it go, the algorithms, the math that's doing real time and what it does with that data is really the secret sauce. And ArtTech's on Studio 18 now 18 revisions every year gets so much better.
Speaker 2:You mentioned the HD reconstruction. It was two years ago, I think maybe a little bit longer now. They introduced HD mode. Basically, what that meant was ArtTech figured out, introduced some AI algorithms into their software, they figured out how to use the graphics card to do additional calculations on the raw data and they effectively doubled the resolution of all EVEOs and all EVEOs out there. So if you had had your EVEO for eight years, at that point you got the software update that. If you're already on the subscription, you got it for free, you're. It's like you got a new scanner overnight just because it doubled in detail.
Speaker 1:So yeah, touch on that a little bit. I mean, I haven't dove much into the like the ArtTech Studio 18 and the AI stuff, so is it making some like are there times where you would not use the HD reconstruction?
Speaker 2:No, there's not. So really it's just running further calculations on those on the raw data, on that raw projected light source image, just basically sucking more out of it and using the graphics card. For you know, cpu accelerated math compared to basically all CPU stuff, and in the future there's not even, it probably won't even give you the option, it'll probably just reuse the graphics card for all those calculations and it's just gonna be normal scanning, quote unquote. So it's not necessarily making things up, it's just doing more math, the stuff more out of it and get you better data.
Speaker 1:Yeah, okay, yeah, that's a good point. And then one of the questions that I have and a lot of people ask me about are the different software right? So a lot of scanning companies you get the software for quote, unquote, free, you know, and you don't have to pay an annual subscription or whatever. That's not the case with ArtDeck and they do frequently update, and these updates are significant updates. They're not just, hey, we like a little switch here and there, but you know there are some workflow differences between the two. So can you like? I know there's a little bit of the scan tech interface. You know, when you're scanning a lot of times and you're going to process it, it'll automatically try to make these models watertight and that sort of thing. And while there is some automatic features to the ArtDeck, there are a few more steps if you really wanna get precise. Or maybe Studio 18 has changed that, I'm not sure on, you know, creating a more automated workflow to get the model out. Can you just share with our listeners a little bit about that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, in terms of like complexity of the workflows that we're just saying.
Speaker 1:Yeah, like you know how you do some like global registration and things of that nature, that happens kind of in the background and automatically, at least on the stuff that I've seen on like the scan tech side or even on the Shining 3D side, they're trying to do that real time where the ArtDeck you can do it real time, but the reality is you're better off using the raw data and putting it all together.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so that kind of comes down to the backend principles of how those two different systems are operating, where ArtDeck is using no target and it's stitching those different frames together by features it's basically best fitting by color variation and geometry variation and so it's doing that real time, which is still insane to me, like the Leo's three million measurements a second and just flies. But there is a level of error real time while you're scanning and it does a pretty good job, but it's not perfect. So then once you get that data into ArtDeck, artdeck does a really good job of not making it too complicated to process. But if you want to get into the nuts and bolts and any gritty of that backend data that give you access to it, you can actually jump into a scan and see each individual 3D frame if you want to. If you want to split scans apart, if there's misalignments of those individual frames, you can go and surgically go in there. It's pretty cool. But basically you do need to run what's called global registration with that ArtDeck data. Once you're in ArtDeck Studio software, all that's doing is it's looking at all those individual frames, doing kind of a fine alignment at that frame level with all the frames in that scan to make sure everything is where it needs to be. It reduces and eliminates that real time error that gets introduced while scanning.
Speaker 2:Just a dedicated process for it, the scan tech stuff and Shining and Korea for me, all those. They don't have that stuff, but it's because they function differently. They're looking for targets while scanning, they're not looking for features. So I like to say those type scanners that use targets are going to be better suited typically for, like metrology applications, super high accuracy situations, because it's a more objective way of the scanner knowing where it is in 3D space. It's looking for those stickers, it knows what those stickers are, so it knows how to place them very accurately, instead of using freckles on your arms and muscles and veins and being able to use those different shapes. So I would say it's more complex what they're doing on the back end with.
Speaker 2:ArtDeck Got it. That's kind of. I think that was a long answer for what you were looking for, but I hope I answered it.
Speaker 1:No, 100%. No, that was great. Well, let's finish up talking a little bit. You touched on it and foreshadowed and the robotics side of some of the automatic scanning stuff that you're working on and really kind of pushed the envelope of putting some of these scanners on a robot arm. Can you share with our audience some of the stuff that you're up to? And then after that, after you share that, do you ever see a time where something like that would be potentially beneficial to our field, the field of orthotics and prosthetics, where you have a set path, you put a patient in a specific position and you have a set path for this robot to scan. Does that ever make sense or is it a cost prohibitive move? But I want to hear about the robot stuff first and then you can kind of go into where my head goes.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so, first off, I think robots are super cool, and that's the little kid in me. I've been doing this for almost 10 years with 3D scanners. I still think it's super cool, Get excited about it every day, Get excited about the new scanners even the ones we don't carry that come out. So I love the technology, and robots fall into that category. Robots are just super cool. That said, I think robots are the future from a professional, commercial standpoint.
Speaker 2:People are wanting to scan more, scan faster, scan more repeatedly. It's harder and harder to find people that want to wear. Or you're just trying to up production but can't afford more people, or whatever variety of different reasons. You might want to automate and use robots. That's the direction, especially on the more industrial style scanning. That's the direction a lot of that's going, and it's not always just to replace a person. That's what the robot does. Is just basically imitates what you're going to do with your arm. Anyways, what we're doing is it's not anything crazy, right? We're just taking a handheld scanner and putting it on the end of a robot, so it is automating the actual scanning portion. But there can be ergonomics advantages to that, right. If you've got somebody that's scanning just eight hours a day, you still need an operator to load a part. They'll press go, but their job gets a lot easier instead of a little bit more backbreaking if you're doing that all day.
Speaker 2:So we've got a couple different solutions, some that are geared towards just smaller parts. We've got one up on the website. I got a cool video about it. It's called the RM300, just 300 millimeters. Basically, it can scan and inspect parts that are 300 millimeters and smaller. Basically it's foot and smaller. So that's what that one's geared towards, and really our goal is come up with cool solutions that are helpful for people, but also one that's a little bit more approachable from a pricing standpoint. Historically, if you even mentioned the word robot, you're looking at half a million dollars and up quickly. Wow, so it's still not cheap, right, that RM300, it's like 110 grand out the door, plus or minus kind of, depending on the setup. So it's still expensive. But again, it's still a tool. If you're pumping out parts every day, if you need to just measure parts constantly all day, it can work really well. Or work on some other robot setups too that are bigger. Right, With bigger robots, bigger scanners, like putting the Leo on the end of it or putting the Antec Tracks can for scanning Engine blocks for one company, but also maybe getting into scanning furniture and couches and things like that in a more automated fashion. And right now robots are still pretty expensive.
Speaker 2:There's, you know, like we use, universal robot. They're probably, I would say, the apple of co-bots, if you will. You pay a premium, but they are the best, they've been around for the longest. But there's also a lot of other brands as well. We've picked up another one called Elite Robotics, very similar to UR. They haven't been around as long but and they don't have some of the advanced features and sensors. But with what we're doing with scanning, we're just replacing a human ARG, if you will. We don't have to be super accurate. You don't need all the a bunch of the different features like pressure feedback sensors that you would use for automated sanding and things like that.
Speaker 2:So that that is all bringing the price of robotics down for scanning and for our world, which is nice. That of 50 grand per scanner you're looking or for a robot you're looking like 20 grand for a robot, but for right now probably still price prohibitive for your world is my assumption, Unless you're really looking at higher volume, which could be a possibility, but every day it's coming down, Right. So scanners will continue to get more affordable. They'll still get better. Right, there's still going to be a $30,000 scanner, but it'll be even better than what the Leo is today. But they're quilling out that the Leo would be cheaper.
Speaker 2:And then robots is more and more people come into that field and get more refined. There's going to be more affordable robots. The software is where where I think there's going to be the biggest room for improvement in terms of just making automatic scan paths. I think AI is going to play a huge part in that, instead of having to spend a lot of time coming up with scan paths. So it's coming. It's still. Yeah, there's still a ways to go to make it super attainable for everybody, but I'm a big believer in that. Oh, that's cool, that's cool, Super cool.
Speaker 1:We could host you for doing that. I mean, we've covered the kind of the gamut of of scanning styles, of scanning Anything, anything that you think that we've missed, that our listeners may benefit from, or did we do a pretty good job covering stuff?
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, I think we covered a lot I I nerd out to this stuff. This is what I do every day and love it, so I could I could talk for hours about it. So I think we're going to be able to do that. So I'm sure I'll think of something else later. But if anybody ever has questions, you know feel free to reach out, especially even if it's. If it's not a scanner we don't, we don't carry that's totally fine. We just we're a 3D scanning company and I just like to talk about it, so I always have to answer questions.
Speaker 1:Okay, so, yeah. So for any of our listeners that are looking to reach you or reach digitized design, what's the best way to do that? Where can they find you and then interact with you as well?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I'm Oliver LinkedIn, for sure. Bo Helmholt with Digitized Designs. You can. You can send me an email directly bohelmholtdigitizeddesignscom. If you can't figure out how to spell my last name, you can also do info at digitizeddesignscom and that'll eventually make its way to me as well.
Speaker 1:Well, bo, thank you so much for your time today. This was great. I know I learned a lot as well and, yeah, thank you for sharing your experience.
Speaker 2:Yeah, man, thanks for having me on. This has been fun. The first time I've ever done anything like this, so it's been cool.
Speaker 1:Hey, how cool is that. And thank you, our listeners, for listening to the prosthetics and orthotics podcast. This is another episode. Thank you for joining us and have a great rest of the day.