Through the "eyes" of machines, we are "seeing" a bigger world. Entering the "China Vision Valley" Shining 3D

Vision is a window for humans to perceive the world, and about 80% of our knowledge comes from it. Because of vision, we appreciate the myriad colors; because of vision, we appreciate the magnificence of nature. However, human vision is often constrained by light and space, and it is easy to fall into blind spots when facing complex and high-precision objects. In this case, can we invent a visual machine to make up for the defects and solve the problems?

"Machine vision technology", a technology that allows machines to see the world, has quietly emerged. It can simulate human visual functions through computers, extract information from the images of objective objects, process and understand them, and finally use them for actual detection, measurement and control. To a large extent, "machine vision technology" has broadened the boundaries of human visual perception of the world. "Xinlin 3D", located in the core startup area of ​​"China Vision Valley", is such a company that continues to promote innovation and exploration of 3D vision technology.

On August 14, with the support of Zhejiang Association for Science and Technology, the 2024 Zhejiang Association for Science and Technology "Entering New Quality Productivity" series of science popularization activities entered China Vision Valley and came to Shining 3D, leading the public to get a close look at the core position of high-precision 3D vision technology in new quality productivity, and in-depth exploration of how it empowers innovation and change in the automotive industry, energy and heavy industry, electronics and electrical appliances, precision medicine and other fields.

3D digital visual acquisition system: a good helper for cultural relics restoration

A few years ago, the documentary "I Repair Cultural Relics in the Forbidden City" showed us the world-class Chinese cultural relic restoration technology. When these cultural relics that have been circulating for thousands of years are rejuvenated in the hands of experts, we deeply feel the concentration and sweat of so many people behind it. With the development of science and technology, more and more new technologies have brought new vitality to this "repairing the old as it is" industry. For example, the documentary mentioned that 3D printing technology has solved the impact of traditional release agents on cultural relics.

In recent years, "virtual museums" have been on the rise, and major museums have adopted network virtual technology to break the limitations of physical museums to meet the diverse needs of the public. Among them, the acquisition of three-dimensional data of cultural relics is a crucial part of the construction of "virtual museums". In fact, the "3D digital visual acquisition system" plays a powerful role not only in the exhibition and restoration of cultural relics, but also in the digital archiving process. In the popular science class "The Secret of Three-Dimensional Digital Visual Acquisition in the Cultural and Museum Field", Hong Wenjing, a technical engineer of Shining 3D, gave a detailed analysis and introduction to the operation and application of the system.

Hong Wenjing shared the scanning cases of the Yingxian Wooden Pagoda and the Maijishan Grottoes to show everyone the charm of high-precision 3D scanning technology. Compared with traditional manual measurement and modeling methods, this technology can achieve non-contact, non-damaging, all-round, accurate and efficient recording of cultural relics information, establish a digital archive of cultural relics, and thus minimize the secondary damage to cultural relics. In addition, the digital cultural relic data obtained by scanning technology is not limited to the field of cultural relic restoration and protection, but also shows great potential in the development of cultural relic replicas and derivatives.

For example, in order to let the Dehua white porcelain artworks treasured in the museum go out of the museum and let more people know about it, the Fujian Museum used a high-precision 3D scanner to collect cultural relics elements, and combined with modern art design concepts, carefully created a series of creative stationery, accessories, art walls and other derivative cultural and creative products, showing the artistic charm of Dehua white porcelain from a new perspective, allowing the audience to easily appreciate the unique artistic beauty and profound cultural heritage of Dehua white porcelain.

The 3D digital visual acquisition system ranges from "3D scanning" to "3D CAD design and simulation software", from the application of "common digital manufacturing technology" to "online platform display". The entire system is fully operational and has the characteristics of high efficiency, high precision, non-contact and easy to carry. Therefore, it plays an irreplaceable role in many cultural relics related work - in the "Ying County Sakyamuni Pagoda Digital Protection Project", the system implements three-dimensional digital archiving of cultural relics in the wooden pagoda without damaging the cultural relics; in the "Chengshi Sanzhai Huizhou Ancient Building Digital Archiving" project, the system records the morphological characteristics of cultural relics and ancient building decorations without contact according to demand; in the "Cultural Relics Restoration: Digital Restoration of Song Dynasty Translucent Porcelain" project, the 3D digital visual acquisition system provides detailed data support for 3D restoration printing, so that the restoration of cultural relics is as close to their original appearance as possible and restores the authenticity.

3D scanning is very useful for turning physical into digital

Unlock the 3D world

After finishing the popular science class full of practical information, everyone entered the "Xianlin Dental" theme exhibition hall with great interest. In the real scene of the dental clinic, they immersively experienced the role of 3D scanning in dental orthodontics, restoration, implantation, aesthetics and other treatments. The staff showed everyone the 3D oral scanning equipment and invited the children to experience the oral scanning process in person. Everyone could not help but be attracted by the oral model that was quickly formed on the big screen.

"Please lie down and relax." The staff took a child to experience dental scanning. The staff put the device into the child's mouth, scanned it left and right, and in just one or two minutes, the child's oral model was generated in real time on the computer. "Wow, look! These are my teeth!" The child said excitedly, pointing at the model on the screen. Her mother also exclaimed: "This is much faster than the check-up we had in the hospital!" "And I didn't feel anything in my mouth during the operation." The child added with a smile.

Afterwards, everyone came to the comprehensive exhibition hall. An engineer was seen holding an irregular polygon that looked like a Rubik's Cube, waving it at the car here and there... As his eyes turned, the car in front of him actually "drilled" into the electronic screen - it turned out that the 50 blue laser lines emitted by the machine were scanning the car at a maximum speed of 3.68 million times per second. After about 8 minutes, a complete digital 3D model of the vehicle appeared on the screen. As the engineer turned the mouse wheel, the details of the car continued to magnify on the screen until the outline, undulations, and arcs all disappeared, leaving only the most primitive points, lines, and triangular grids.

"This is a high-precision industrial 3D scanner. It retains information such as object structure, geometric details, and dimensional relationships. It is highly consistent with the real object and can be widely used in all aspects of industrial measurement." The staff introduced to everyone.

Afterwards, everyone followed the staff to continue watching the 3D scanning process up close. The children were eager to try and experience the scanning process of engineering machinery parts, with curiosity and excitement in their eyes. The most attractive thing was the "human body scanning". The person being scanned only needs to stand still, look forward, and wait for the scanner to complete the 360-degree full-scale scan, and a 3D digital model of the human body will be obtained in an instant. In less than 3 minutes, a digital person with the same color, expression, and shape as a real person appeared from scratch on the screen vividly.

Under the guidance of the staff, the children operated the machine with their own hands and witnessed the wonderful process of transformation from the material world to the digital world. They not only heard professional explanations, but also felt the charm of 3D scanning technology. Through the birth of models one after another on the big screen, the children gradually realized that through the eyes of the machine, we can explore a more sophisticated and vast world.

After visiting all the exhibition halls, Xu Fanen from Yucai Dachengbei Middle School said excitedly: "3D scanning is really amazing. It can see many things that I can't see at all, and it is very detailed." 3D scanning technology has become an important tool for expanding human visual capabilities and is shining brightly in many fields such as automobile manufacturing, energy development, electronics industry, cultural heritage protection, dentistry and even virtual reality.

What is spatial intelligence?

At present, "spatial intelligence" has become a new hot spot in the development and application of artificial intelligence technology. In the field of artificial intelligence, spatial intelligence usually refers to the ability to observe and understand three-dimensional space and take actions autonomously in three-dimensional space.

Marked by the GPT-4o model released by OpenAI in May 2024, the development of artificial intelligence may quickly transition from the "first half" of exploring the boundaries of technology to the "second half" of clarifying the scope of application and building product forms. In this context, as a comprehensive technology combining multimodal large models, virtual reality and advanced sensor technology, spatial intelligence has shown more practical and easier to understand application potential.

[“Entering the New Productivity” series of popular science activities]

With the rapid development of science and technology, new productivity is reshaping our world at an unprecedented speed. Zhejiang Association for Science and Technology actively responds to the call of the times and strives to create a series of popular science activities called "Entering New Productivity", aiming to deepen the popular science education of young people, relying on Zhejiang Province's unique "315" scientific and technological innovation system and forward-looking "9+6" future industrial layout, leading the public to step into the forefront of science and technology, perceive the charm of science and technology, improve the scientific literacy of the whole people, and jointly draw a blueprint for innovative development.

The 2024 Zhejiang Association for Science and Technology's "Entering New Productivity" series of science popularization activities will build a bridge between the public and cutting-edge technology with rich and diverse scenario-based, experiential, and immersive science popularization forms, and jointly explore the innovative context of eight future industries, including synthetic biology, gene editing, brain science and artificial intelligence, hydrogen energy storage, aerospace information, ground-space integration, metaverse, deep earth and deep sea.