The 3D imaging center, 3DIM, at DTU is a competence center for x-ray and neutron imaging.
It is home to a new national facility, DANFIX: a 900 m2 laboratory with room for 10 CT scanners. The facility will be used for research and education within a very broad range of natural, technical and health disciplines. Also it supports the digitization of natural and cultural heritage in Denmark. For science, use of the facility will be via peer review and on a collaborative basis.
We plan to inaugurate DANFIX in Autumn 2020, but the facility is already accepting users. Currently it is equipped with five x-ray scanners. CT scanning is provided with a spatial resolution varying from 2 m on 100 m thick samples to 100 m on 20 cm thick samples. State-of-the-art laser vision equipment is available for high resolution surface scanning. The facility is currently running with limited access due to the COVID-19 restrictions.
3DIM is associated with an imaging industry portal, which has collaborated with 35 companies since the first scanner was acquired in 2013. The portal is one of three branches of the national societal partnership “Linking Industry with Neutrons and X-rays”.
3DIM is closely associated with several other infrastructures:
- the general purpose imaging instrument at beamline DanMAX at the synchrotron MAX IV in Lund, to be commissioned in the beginning of 2021.
- two imaging instruments ODIN and BEER at the neutron facility ESS, in Lund (2022).
- the dedicated hard x-ray microscope: a flagship beamline at ESRF (open for users in 2020).
The large amount of data and their high complexity imply that data analysis often takes 10-100 times longer than the data acquisition. To alleviate this problem DTU, KU, LU, MAX-IV and ESS have established a joint data analysis center, QIM, for imaging data from MAX IV, ESS and 3DIM. One branch of QIM is located within the 3DIM premises.
3DIM is also placed in close proximity to the Center for Electron Nanoscopy, the largest TEM centre in Denmark. This provides excellent opportunities for multiscale studies.
The partners of 3DIM has 30 years of experience in x-ray and neutron instrumentation. This allows us to design and built machines with new modalities and scanners customized to special requirements. We commercialize some of the designs, in parts via spin-out companies such as Xnovo Technology and Exruptive.
The origin of 3DIM was a grant by the Capitol Region of Denmark in 2013. From this it has grown based on funding primarily from DTU, the Ministry of Higher Education and Science and from Innovation Foundation of Denmark.