Potential use of 3-dimensional scanners for food process modeling

In food process simulation studies, geometrical characterization of food products is extremely difficult due to their irregular shapes. Further simplifications and assumptions are applied to overcome this issue. Using 3-dimensional (3D) scanners might simplify this step and make it more realistic to obtain accurate results from simulations. Hence, a NextEngine 3D scanner (Next Engine Inc., Santa Monica, CA) was used to obtain 3D images of food products. This led to acquire 3D digital images of irregular shaped food products (pears, strawberries, bananas, apples and eggs) by saving laborious efforts and decreased the errors due to experimental measurements to generate given geometries. Then, to simulate a cooling process, digital images of pears were imported to a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) program, and simulation results were compared with the experimental temperature data. Perfect spheres and eggs were, on the other hand, used to demonstrate surface area and volume estimation properties of the 3D scanning processes. With all these features and user-friendly properties, 3D scanners were demonstrated to promise a wide application area in food process engineering studies.