3D Scanner??

[Jonathan Ryan]

Anybody have any experience with these?
Any recommendations? Anything to stay away from?

Thanks

[Underdog_19]

I don't have any first hand experience but a couple reviews of the MakerBot 3D scanner have been underwhelming.

3DSystems makes an interesting one that connects to an iPad. I have no idea how well it works but it looks cool.

[cad321]

over the past few months I have been playing around with using our kinect for 3d scanning and have had some good results. I am currently working on how to take the mesh that it creates, and make it a solid for something like a 3d printer to build. The software that I'm currently using is reconstruct me for the scanning aspect.

[Chris Mounts]

I work with scanners for a living. Do you have specific questions about them?

The type of scanners that I think your looking for fall into a category known as part scanners. They are used for quality and reverse engineering. Accuracy varies wildly and is rather complex in practice but in general they range from 0.0004” to 0.01"

I'm assuming that due to where you are asking the question you're looking to reverse engineer parts. Unfortunately unless you have a substantial budget scanning might not be right for you yet. For reverse engineering we use $50k scanning arms and up. It's not all bad news though!

If your willing to supplement your scanning with manual measurements and have a functional equivalent part as opposed to a complete copy you have lots of low cost (some even free) options.

Your options are going to be in the camera based scanners. As CAD321 mentioned the Kinect can do an alright job but may struggle with small parts. I haven't used Reconstruct Me but have used a free option from Faro called Scenect.

Another option is Autodesks 123D Catch that will turn normal photos into 3D meshes. There is also a new offering from Autodesk that looks promising called Project Memento that's worth checking out.

[techhelpbb]

I've used and have access to the: Next Engine HD Pro
They have this over at NextFAB right now:http://www.nextfab.com/about
I am a full member at NextFAB with access to just about everything.
So I can use the scanner within the $140 a month fee (some tools have extra fees but they are quite reasonable).

We scanned a couple of things.
NextFAB is talking about getting an arm, I've been thinking about building one open source.

I think the mistake to avoid is the idea that you'll end up just scanning everything and getting a perfect 3D point cloud to make into say an STL. There's often some things to fix up and obviously some things in a scan can be occluded.

They do have quite a collection of printed human heads however.
Tiny shrunken plastic and gypsum heads - feel free to tell Brandon I referred you he knows I jest.

I also have some of these scanners:
http://www.intricad.com/bin/main/products.php
http://www.intricad.com/bin/main/products/triangles.php

These work though the point cloud editing near completion is a bit of an issue.
That work is done with VRMesh Studio which has a licensing cost that is not insignificant.

This link might be of interest but there's some PR at work in it: http://www.nextengine.com/gallery
That's actually a slide show with quite a few slides showing the Next Engine performance versus competitors.

[DonRotolo]

Originally Posted by techhelpbb

I think the mistake to avoid is the idea that you'll end up just scanning everything and getting a perfect 3D point cloud to make into say an STL.

Re-quoted for truth.

A scanner isn't magic: Even in the 5-figure range, you don't get a 'ready to build' part from it. There is always some effort required before you can print a 'good enough' part. At the low end (<$3k) there is simply more work required.

[rsegrest]

In advance of getting a Makerbot Replicator we purchased the Makerbot 3-d scanner. I can only speak to what we have experimented with and tried:

1. The scanner has trouble picking up detail on dark objects. We attempted to do a fairly detailed scan of our school mascot and it was mediocre at best even with tweaking and adjusting various tools included in the software.
2. Lighter colored objects work best.
3. Most scans come out a little blobby here and there so they need to be saved in a format that we can alter using other software (Blender, CAD etc.).
4. Smaller objects with little detail work best.
5. You are not going to get an 'exact' replica of your object. Or at least we haven't yet. We have been able to print scanned objects just not to exact detail of original.
6. The more delicate the detail the harder it is for the scanner to pick up.
7. The scanner is finicky about lighting. It is highly recommended that you avoid placing it directly under a light source (contrary to what I thought).
8. To get full scans you have to do a 'multi-scan' meaning you run the first scan, adjust the position of the item, and then re-run the scan process (flip to its side to get a top and bottom image) .
9. It does not scan hollow objects very well.
10. The lasers can be difficult to accurately align.

I realize this seems like a long list of 'don't buy a 3-D scanner' (or at least the one we have). On the other-hand we have had some successful scans that did not need to be altered. Much of this may be trial and error on our part (there is not a lot of documentation and as far as the retail market they still aren't 'mainstream' yet). We have enjoyed toying with it and seeing what it can and cannot do.

I agree with techhelpbb and Don; don't buy one assuming you are going to get a technically acceptable part for 3-D printing because it isn't going to happen. If you are buying one to get the majority of the work out of the way so that you simply have to do some alterations to a part to get it technically acceptable for your usage then by all means snag one. Otherwise I might wait a couple of years for improved designs/functionality and spend that money somewhere else to better help your team.

Hope this helps