When most people think of CT (computed tomography), they think of the expensive tests in hospitals that emit a lot of radiation. Today, CT scans are considered a killer tool for non-destructive testing for industrial use, and are being used in a more inexpensive way.
Compared with destructive detection that cannot be seen directly by the naked eye, CT scanning can be described as a "booster" for industrial quality inspection. It can obtain a three-dimensional image of the internal structure of the object through X-ray scanning without damaging it, clearly showing details such as material composition, pore defects, density distribution, etc.
Smart entrepreneurs certainly don't miss out on this opportunity. Lumafield, a small Massachusetts-based company, has jumped on this trend by developing affordable, accessible industrial CT scanning equipment that has exploded into the market and has now received more than $67.5 million in investment.
Why did you get involved in CT? Lumafield's founder, Eduardo Torrealba, came from a working-class background and was funded by the Gates Foundation to attend prestigious schools. During his time at university, he was inspired by the process of seeing many professors turn their research results into commercial products. He planned to pursue a career in academic research, but later abandoned his plan to pursue a PhD in favor of pursuing a business entrepreneurship path that would directly benefit the public.
↑ Eduardo Torrealba (Photo: Forbes) Although Oso Technologies, the first indoor crop growing sensor company, was eventually acquired, Eduardo Torrealba benefited greatly from it. He understands that the right timing, the right team, and advanced technology are behind a successful product. All of this was accompanied by his experience at Formlabs, a 3D printing company, which allowed him to develop his skills in product development. In 2019, Eduardo Torrealba embarked on his new idea to "democratize" CT scanning technology. At the time, CT scanning machines used in the industrial sector were often bulky, complex, and expensive, making this advanced NDT technology difficult for traditional manufacturing to access. Ed wants to change this dilemma and make the power of CT scanning accessible to all engineers and product designers. Lumafield was born. Faced with the general trend of other companies continuing to reduce costs, Ed chose the opposite business path: to reduce the cost of manufacturing CT scanner hardware by careful design, and to migrate data processing to the cloud to spread spending. As a result, Lumafield was able to keep its Neptune scanner within $3,000 per month, which is significantly lower than the one-time payment of more than $1 million for traditional industrial CT equipment. Its cost-effective performance instantly caught the attention of many engineers who wanted to use CT scans.
What's more, Lumafield has also made innovations in portability and intelligence. Neptune scanners are significantly reduced in size, making them easy to deploy in office environments. Its Voyager software automatically stitches and segments CT images in the cloud, providing users with high-value results.
It all stems from Eduardo Torrealba's vision: "We are working hard to make cutting-edge technologies that were originally developed for extreme applications accessible to every engineer. "Lumafield has captured the manufacturing industry's pain points for low-cost, high-convenience industrial CT inspection equipment. With early clients such as L'Oréal, OXO, Trek Bikes and more, the company has raised $67.5 million, including $32.5 million in seed and Series A funding, valuing the company at hundreds of millions of dollars. Many customers are already using Lumafield's CT scanning and analysis capabilities to perform non-destructive testing and evaluation of all structures and critical components of their products.
With the high-resolution CT images scanned by the Neptune scanner, engineers can clearly see details such as part placement, internal cavity distribution, and the quality of connections between parts. Voyager software will automatically fuse multiple CT scan sections to generate a digital 3D reconstruction model for at-a-glance visibility of defects and assembly issues. Furthermore, by measuring the density and material properties of each area of the product through comparative imaging, key indicators such as foam material uniformity and thermal insulation element performance can be evaluated, which can avoid quality risks caused by minor defects in the product and ensure the best experience of the outgoing product.
In addition to outgoing inspections, Lumafield's solutions can also support quality tracking and control throughout the product life cycle. The accumulation of data for each batch of product sampling and CT detection will be conducive to optimizing the subsequent design and process and improving product reliability. If a product encounters a quality dispute one day and needs to trace the root cause of the problem, these historical CT data will also provide a clear clue basis. What's more, CT scans can be used to study other competitors to gain insight into the design concepts and craftsmanship of competitors, and provide ideas for future innovation.
↑Apple Vision Pro vs. Meta Quest 3 It is foreseeable that the revolutionary ability of non-destructive CT detection and analysis will have a profound impact on the manufacturing industry. From upstream to downstream, from design to quality control, to market analysis, CT scan data will become a new "blood" and "nerve" in the manufacturing process, driving continuous optimization and innovation of product quality. It is precisely because of this unlimited prospect that the capital market is fond of investing heavily in Lumafield. The company will continue to refine the capabilities of Neptune and Voyager, and is expected to expand CT scanning technology from hardware to software to provide customers with an integrated product quality management solution. In addition to the existing consumer electronics, sports products and other fields, Lumafield's business will be further expanded, and more industries such as automotive, aerospace, medical devices and more are expected to use its CT scanning technology to improve the quality of products. At the same time, with the continuous upgrading of artificial intelligence algorithms, Lumafield may also integrate AI visual recognition technology into Voyager analysis software in the future to realize automatic learning and high-level analysis of defect patterns, providing engineers with higher-level quality data insights. For Lumafield, CT scanning is more than just a business, it's a disruptive technology that could revolutionize manufacturing. By making expensive high-end scanning equipment available to customers in a "democratic" way, CT scanning is no longer an "expensive toy" out of reach, but a practical productivity tool. This kind of innovative thinking precisely reflects the original intention of scientific and technological development.
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