Posted by John Lorusso

Robert Jackson, founder of The CAD Workshop, commented – “Since 1999 I have been looking for a resource that can provide accurate, high quality scans of large vellum prints and shop drawings without damaging them. After many false starts with companies that claimed they could provide high quality scanning services, I found The Big Scan. When I viewed the Cruse scanning video on your website I was convinced that we had finally identified a resource that could provide the service that we needed.”

It turns out that Robert is very into Star Wars Droids, especially R2-D2. In fact, he has a set of the drawings that were physically used to make the original R2-D2  props for the 1977 film Star Wars. In 1999, Robert purchased the drawings from Norman Harrison, owner of Norank Engineering, the company contracted by 20th Century Fox to build the original R2-D2 props. Robert needed accurate scans of these drawings so that the digitized files could be used for baseline dimensional or measured information on these blueprints and 3D scans of objects used to make the actual prop.

Robert plans to launch a website www.openr2.org which will review various licensed life size R2-D2 merchandise for dimensional accuracy compared to the original props. The first review will be a dimensional review of Side Show Collectables life size R2-D2 statue using digitally scaled dimensions from the Cruse scans of the Norank Engineering blueprints and dimensions published in the coffee table book “The Blueprints of Star Wars” by John Risner.

Scanning large format vellum drawings and prints requires special scanning capabilities. Drawings are often rolled and brittle. They can be easily damaged by conventional drawing scanners. Since the Cruse Synchron scanner has a vacuum bed, scans were done without any contact with the document, eliminating risk of damage to the original.

If you have any questions or need assistance with large format scans or prints, contact us.