3D

3D Print

Motorcycle Windscreen

14. May 2025

A personal project focused on digitally reconstructing a broken motorcycle windscreen through photogrammetry, rebuilding it with clean topology, and preparing a redesigned version for 3D printing and visualization.

Overview

This project began as a practical challenge:
the original windscreen of my motorcycle broke, and instead of purchasing a new one, I decided to use the opportunity to recreate, and later redesign, the part myself. The process combined photogrammetry, 3D reconstruction, retopology, and 3D printing. Using Agisoft Metashape, Cinema 4D, and practical photography techniques, the damaged windscreen was transformed into a clean, printable 3D model. The project is still ongoing, with a redesigned variant and final 3D renders planned for winter.

Photogrammetry Preparation

Before capturing the geometry, the broken windscreen had to be made suitable for scanning. Since the original surface was black and glossy, it lacked the distinct visual markers required for accurate photogrammetry alignment. To make the dark, glossy surface suitable for photogrammetry, the entire windscreen was first covered with masking tape and marked with various dots, crosses, and small symbols. These elements acted as artificial feature points, giving the software enough contrast and detail to track the geometry reliably. The object was then placed in a simple photography setup with soft, even lighting, a white backdrop, and a reflector to minimize harsh shadows. For full coverage, the windscreen was photographed three times around a complete 360° rotation, once at eye level, once slightly from above, and once from a lower angle, with every photo overlapping just enough to guarantee accurate alignment later in Metashape.

Prepared windscreen — taped and marked for photogrammetry tracking

Photogrammetry setup - multi-angle capture with controlled lighting

Representative photos from each height and angle used to generate the photogrammetry model

Scan Processing in Metashape

All images were processed using Agisoft Metashape

Image Alignment — all 167 photos successfully aligned, generating a sparse point cloud (~51k tie points) that defines the initial camera positions and overall geometry.

Dense Cloud — high-resolution depth maps reconstructed into a dense point cloud (~12.7 million points), capturing fine curvature and surface detail of the windscreen.

Initial Mesh — the first mesh generated from the dense cloud, before retopology, cleanup, and surface refinement.

Throughout every processing step, continuous cleanup was performed to maintain accuracy and avoid unnecessary artifacts. During image alignment, incorrectly detected tie points, background noise, and off-surface points were removed to keep the sparse cloud clean. The dense cloud phase was refined as well, filtering out stray geometry and smoothing inconsistencies before generating the mesh. This iterative cleanup ensured that the resulting model was as accurate and noise-free as possible, providing a solid foundation for later retopology and modeling work in Cinema 4D.

Retopology & Model Rebuild

To create a clean and functional version of the windscreen, the high-resolution scan was imported into Cinema 4D, where a complete manual retopology process was carried out. The scanned surface was rebuilt using clean, evenly distributed quads, symmetry was restored, and the overall curvature was refined to match the original form more accurately.

SHADED VIEW
MESH VIEW

Model out of Agisoft Metashape

Clean surface reconstruction preview (still need cleanup)

RETOPO
METASHAPE

The current mesh still needs further cleanup.

3D Printing Tests

To verify the accuracy of the scan and ensure the part would fit in the real world, the retopologized model was exported as an STL file, sliced, and 3D-printed as a test prototype.
This physical print made it possible to evaluate several key aspects of the design:

  • the curvature of the surface,

  • the alignment of the mounting points,

  • the overall rigidity and wall thickness,

  • and the general visual fit on the motorcycle.

3D-printed prototype — used to validate curvature, geometry, and scale

Fitment check — verifying alignment and proportions directly on the motorcycle

Current Status & Next Steps

The project is still ongoing and planned to continue over the winter.

Upcoming steps include:

  • Designing a new custom windscreen shape
    — not an exact copy of the original
    — improved geometry, styling, and aerodynamics

  • Clean visualization
    — 3D renders and a short animation in Cinema 4D + Octane

  • Final 3D print
    — functional thickness
    — transparency material trials

  • Updated project page
    — once the redesigned version is complete

Tools used in this project

Cinema 4D

Agisoft Metashape

Cinema 4D

Agisoft Metashape

Cinema 4D

Agisoft Metashape

Cam

Cam

Cam

FZC Marzahn

FZC Marzahn

FZC Marzahn