Photogramatry and Blue Light Scanners

[F104A]

The December update on landspeed.com gives a pretty good idea how and why we scan the North American Eagle.
http://landspeed.com/project/updates/326-dec-27-2014

[F104A]

The reason why we scan the vehicle is to validate the aerodynamics of the vehicle and the fairings. We use Geomagic software to convert the point cloud
into surfaces. Once that is done there are several steps we use to complete the CFD analysis. The last phase uses the Cray supercomputer to provide the
images and data needed to verify whether we will fly the beast or drive it down the course.

[telegraph147]

Yep, scanning a very good option to perform computer-base simulation of an existing object. Myself, I use Artec Spider for such purpose. Actually the most useful way of use computer-based simulation of physical processes is firstly create a computer model of your object, than test it, and than create a real object. But if you need to check how an existing one will perform in specified conditions, for sure 3d scanning is very useful.