Feature: 3D scanning for custom bike parts

Mounting luggage on my 790 Duke meant that I had to reinstall the ugly grab handle that was removed as soon as I bought the bike. It also involved taking the small chance that a bag might tilt over, contact the high-mounted exhaust pipe and burst into flames – there’s a social media video out there showing that happen and it wasn’t pretty.

Strangely enough, there were no aftermarket solutions that elegantly solved the problem. Either they were excessively bulky and utilitarian, or they ignored the placement of the exhaust and seemingly adopted that annoying “Arre, kuch nahi hoga beta” attitude.

The only acceptable solution then was to design something on my own, which was a terrible idea because I have no skill in this regard. I’d need professional help to mould my vague ideas into reality and that’s where my friends at Autologue Aero (a division of Autologue Design) came in.

So, one sunny morning, the 790 and I had a typically fun blast down to the Autologue facility outside Pune. First, we discussed how the project had to create a sleek heat shield that continued the lines of the stock exhaust. This had to be connected to an ultra low-profile bracket that wouldn’t mess with the bike’s lines, but would allow me to securely mount bag straps. Then came the fun part.

Out of a heavy-duty briefcase emerged an almost joystick-like handheld device called the Peel 2 CAD 3D scanner. This Canadian-made device was plugged into a laptop and then, the 790 was slowly and meticulously scanned. It was fascinating to see the scanned sections slowly appear on the laptop screen, which represented the data that the device was collecting. Using the laptop as a reference, the entire tail section of the bike was eventually mapped and a 3D render was created. And that was the last time I’d be needing to take my bike to Autologue’s workshop for this job.

The scanned files from this device are compatible with numerous CAD (computer-aided design) software like Solidworks or Inventor, which the designer can then use to create the project. With the digital scan of the 790’s tail in place, the design team at Autologue came up with numerous digital renders as they tried to put structure to my vision. All these renders were sent over WhatsApp before we locked in on a final design. The finished product was then made in brushed stainless steel, which would blend nicely with the silver finish on the 790’s sub-frame.

I have to say I’m most pleased with how it turned out because the parts brought in some much-needed functionality, without making me cringe when I look at the bike. Could this project have been executed without the fancy 3D scanning technology? Of course. But it brought in a level of convenience and customer involvement in the design process that would have been much harder with old-school processes. Here, I got to reject designs I didn’t like when they were still in the digital stage, rather than having the part made and then having to start all over again.

The Peel 2 (there’s now a next-gen Peel 3 model out) is positioned as an affordable 3D scanning tool, but this is clearly still a new-age technology as the device costs around $10,000 (over Rs 8 lakh). Nevertheless, it’s exciting technologies like these that are helping design houses take their capabilities to the next level.