Scented water innovator uses Geomagic Control X for fast and flexible scan-based quality control

German startup air up is on a quest to reinvent hydration.

Aiming to motivate people to drink more water, the company created refillable bottles featuring scent pods that trigger the brain to think the water is flavoured. 

The mechanics behind it are simple. A person places a flavour pod filled with natural aromas on the mouthpiece of the air up drinking system. When they drink from the straw, the aromatised air flows into the throat along with the water. From there, the aroma molecules reach the olfactory centre and are perceived as a taste when exhaled.

For this original concept to become a success, high production quality was a must. This is why air up uses state-of-the-art technology for quality control in the manufacture of their water bottles.

How air up reduced quality control reporting time from 8 hours to 3 with Control X

Time is tight in inspection, says Hazim Abueideh, quality control analyst at air up. The water bottles have multiple parts: the vessel, the adapter, the mouthpiece, the straw and the lid. Each has technical drawings that Abueideh needs to compare with prototypes and samples.

To speed up the workflow, the team started using a 3D scanner in addition to traditional measurement tools. Geomagic Control X gives them the flexibility and functionality necessary to process that scan data efficiently. 

“The biggest time-saver is automated reporting. We do all our reporting with Control X because it’s easy and fast. You just set up the report for the first sample, and you can apply it to all future samples. You import the scan data and the software will make the same measurements,” Abueideh explains. 

Automated reports weren’t even an option before they bought Geomagic Control X – it was all manual. Abueideh would take pictures and arrange them in a report, one by one. 

“Doing reports can be very painful, so I looked through the tools Geomagic Control X had to offer and discovered the reporting functionality. It reduced the time I spend on reporting by around 70%.  Before I needed about eight hours to make the report, and with Geomagic Control X it takes just three,” he explains. 

Abueideh likes that Control X generates tables with the measurements and deviations. He gets a PDF report that he can arrange in any way he wants based on the sequence of operations that they carry out. 

air up initially used the software that came with the 3D scanner they purchased, but Abueideh found that it didn’t offer the functionalities they needed. On a recommendation from an acquaintance in the industry, they trialled Geomagic Control X. 

“We took a course about the software during which we got an overview of the functionalities. We liked what we saw and we purchased it. It gave us the flexibility we were looking for,” Abueideh says 

His go-to tools include 3D compare, which gives him an overview of the deviations by colour. He finds the ability to take measurements of cross-sections particularly useful. With all the measurements ready, Control X gives him a table with deviations, including summaries, automatically. “I simply generate the report, review it and send it,” he adds.

Perfect alignment in one click

Many of the measurements that were difficult to make with their previous software, are a piece of cake in Geomagic Control X. The alignment function is a prime example. 

“Alignment is very important for our measurement, and it wasn’t working properly before. We need to align the STP file of the CAD model of a part with the scan data of the sample to compare measurements between the two,” Abueideh explains.  

“The problem with our old software was that automatic alignment didn’t align the model and the scan data perfectly. We would repeat the process, we would specify more points, but we would still get many errors. The software would indicate deviations and dimensions where there were none or a large deviation where there is a small one. With Control X, you just click a button and most of the time it will align perfectly,” he adds.  

He likes that you can adjust the rotation of the alignment to make it fit well, a capability that greatly reduced the effort involved in aligning the correct axis.

Intuitive UI

An essential factor in enabling quality control to leverage all these capabilities was the ease of use. Abueideh is fairly new to 3D scanning software and he wants something that’s intuitive so he doesn’t have to waste time going through long support documentation. The fact that Control X was so simple to learn made a big difference.

Oqton is lowering the barrier to entry of scan-based 3D inspection. Learn more about our 3D metrology software and request a free trial.