Hangzhou, China — Feb 4, 2022 — Today marks the beginning of the Olympic Winter Games Beijing 2022, a grand event for winter Olympic athletes and sports enthusiasts. Scantech was honored to announce that we joined the force to help the Chinese bobsled team 3D scan and customize helmets to give a slight edge in this top-level competition.

Bobsled competition involves using a specially designed sled to drive down an ice track. Athletes require skill but also the right equipment to complete the route with the fastest time. Being marginally better than your competitors and having the right equipment can make a huge difference.

Any movement of forces the athletes’ bodies experience are magnified by the time they reach their heads, as the head sits at the end of their bodies. Rapid acceleration can make the head be thrown backward or forward. A specially designed helmet in terms of weight, structure, and aerodynamics can help to reduce those effects, enhance safety and improve the performance of these athletes.
Our high-tech 3D scanning technology is one of the solutions to make more comfortable helmets and subtract a few precious tenths of a second for these competitors. On May 22, 2021, we joined the hands of experts and organizers to customize protective helmets for 25 athletes of the Chinese National Olympic Team of Bobsled and Luge at Sports Center in Chongming District, Shanghai by using the technology of 3D scanning and 3D printing.

To create more aerodynamic helmets, our technicians take an entire 3D scan of the athlete’s head with a resolution of a tenth of a millimeter. Thanks to the Infrared VCSEL structured light, iReal 2E 3D color scanner completed the scanning without doing any harm to human eyes.

These data were then transferred to 3D models. With individualized 3D models, the researchers were provided with useful information which enables them to make more comfortable helmets that fit each of the athletes’ heads. It also helped them to choose the perfect materials and fine-tune the product development process.

The upcoming Beijing Winter Olympics will be exciting. We are looking forward to seeing how these athletes will perform in this grant sport event and how our handheld 3D scanner helps the product design of the helmets.

About Scantech

Scantech is one of the pioneers starting to research and develop handheld 3D visual measurement devices across the world. Our products are sold to more than 50 countries and regions, serving over 5000 enterprises. The product line stretches from metrology-grade online and offline equipment to consumer-grade color 3D scanners.