When you look at the current methods of scanning 2D and 3D objects available today, you’re basically looking at an imaging process. Either you take a picture of a 2D object, or you grab a blob of point clouds with a 3D scanner and make a 3D object that way. It wasn’t always like this – real, hardware 3D digitizers were used all the way back in the 70s, and touch probes are standard equipment on high-end CNC machines.

[Nikolaj Møbius] needed a way to record points in physical space, and not wanting to deal with the problems of images, he made an open source DIY digitizer. It’s basically a laser cut arm with rotary encoders at each joint. By reading the rotary encoders with an Arduino, [Nikolaj] can digitize a few points on a workpiece – just enough to make a bracket, or find the critical dimensions of a part.

It’s a great tool for when you need a little more information than a set of calipers can provide, and a great example of some ancient tech made useful again.