Westec 2008 Photos

I spent the first part of April at the WESTEC tradeshow in Los Angeles. Tons of cool stuff there, by the way. Lots of interesting technology with applications in reverse engineering. Here's a few of the highlights:

NextEngine offers a scanning system/software package that is capable of doing quick scans on a wide range of sized parts. They claimed that they have scanned a small block Honda engine on one of their scanners. Their stand was modified of course for this process.
To scan larger parts, the part is just placed further away from the laser scanner to open the 'view window' up. Sounds a little wonky, right? Get this. The whole system will only set you back $5k. Yep. That's what I said...

I think that Haas had a total of 7% of the total convention floor (this show was at the LA Convention Center). That's a lot of space in that big convention center! They had nearly one of every type of their machines there and running. The above picture is their new SR-200 gantry style machining center. It was making Haas logos in red plastic (looked like acrylic) and aluminum.

This Mori Seiki had 9 axis! Crazy!

Uhhh...no product pictures here. Don't get me wrong; their product was really cool. Toyota uses their product in their manufacturing process. It's this simple polypropylene wrap that you put around metal parts to keep them from rusting. When you're ready to use the part, just take the wrap off and use the part. You can even re-use the wrap on another part. I thought the above picture might be a little more interesting...