# Specific 3D Printers, Scanners, & Hardware > Einscan-S 3D scanner >  A few Einscans - Just showing off

## Dudemeister

Below are some of my scans.  A lot of them are of the Disney Infinity series figure, some of other things I found around my room.

First one up, is the model I was using to improve the sharness of my scanner:  The Hulkbuster.  The model is appoximately 4" tall.  It's also the first one I painted, since the Einscanner color scans are really not even worth trying.




Next up is a Disney Mickey and Minnie Mouse Music box, called "Rock Around the Clock".  It about 6.5" in diameter.  This will also get painted, at some time in the future.




Here is another set of Disney Infinity figures, Darth Maul, and Ezra Bridger




More to come.

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## 3dex ltd

They look awesome so far. So will you be releasing the .stl files?

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## Dudemeister

I'm not sure how legal that would be, considering all these are copyrighted material.  There will be other things I'll post, but I'm not sure I want to piss off the Disney Company.

Here are a couple of things other than Disney stuff

Here is a little plastic statuette, originally intended to be painted, that came out at the time of Empire Strikes Back



This next one is a wood carved and painted bunny with flowers



This is a Thunderbird Totem Pole of the North Western Aborigine peoples of Vancouver Canada.



I'll try to post these 3 STL files, however, I'll need to reduce the polygon count, as they are currently in the 300-500MB (5-8M triangles).

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## propologist

Did you post process these or are they strait from the scans?

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## Dudemeister

Some are straight up scans, others are partially processed.  On most of them, the bottom 1-2mm weres cut off to make it flat.

Hulkbuster the bottom of the base was cut off to make it flat, and of course, the model was painted.  Othewise, straight form the scanner.

Mickey & Minnie Music box, the area where they hold hands was fixed a little.

Darth Maul & Ezra Bridger, the lightsaber blades didn't scan because they're transparent, so they were modeled separately, and added to the models.  Ezra had a little enhancing work around the face, but that's it.

Luke Skywalker had some enhancing work done on him, but the Tauntaun is untouched.

The wood bunny is untouched, and so is the Totem pole.

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## scobo

Nice work !
Turntable or freescan ?

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## propologist

Very nice.

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## Dudemeister

> Nice work !
> Turntable or freescan ?


All these are turntable scans.  Most of them require multiple passes to get as much of the surface scanned, but the software does a very good job of aligning the scans (better than what I can do manually in MeshLab, anyway).

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## Dudemeister

As promised, here are the STL's.


They've been  reduced to about 300-400K triangles, which is more than enough to  preserve the details.  These STL's are in the 20-30MB range, so I'm posting them on Dropbox. 


Enjoy.
Carved Bunny
https://www.dropbox.com/s/bbogbtftcle7r … K.stl?dl=0
Luke Skywalker on Tauntaun
https://www.dropbox.com/s/2ngc9vie9td0y … K.stl?dl=0
Totem Pole
https://www.dropbox.com/s/k5wkdw3rue08d … _.stl?dl=0

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## scobo

Here's a couple of my recent efforts.

The Thingiverse owl. 
3D prints scan very well ....




My wife's training shoe ......




And printed with PLA, about 30mm in length .....

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## curious aardvark

that is a seriously good bit of kit !

How much of the hollow of the trainer did the scanner pick up ?

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## scobo

> that is a seriously good bit of kit !


The scanner or the shoe ?  :Big Grin: 
It's not completely hollow but enough to make it look hollow at first glance.

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## curious aardvark

the scanner :-)
I bought a ciclop - 'cause it was stupidly cheap. 
It needs tweaking but at best I doubt I'll ever get better than an amorphous blob. 
Certainly no way it'll ever 'see' a void. Or - at the moment - any kind of shape, at all. 

Guess i'd have been better off putting that money towards an einscan - we live and learn :-)

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## scobo

I had a Cyclop ..... for all of a couple of weeks.
I just couldn't get a single decent mesh from it, no matter what I tried.
I think the weak link with it is the software.
The same hardware used with the David laser scanner software produces much better results.

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## Dudemeister

I also have  an Atlas 3D scanner.  This a DIY Laser scanner that I bought and used with pretty decent results.  It's not in the same class as the Einscan-S, and it does require some post scan work to get a good model, but for the price it's a good introduction to 3D scanning, and I think it produces better results than the higher priced Matter & form and the Makerbot scanner.

You can see some of my scan results here, and throughout the Atlas 3D forum:
http://www.soliforum.com/topic/14434/my-atlas-scans/

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## curious aardvark

> I had a Cyclop ..... for all of a couple of weeks.
> I just couldn't get a single decent mesh from it, no matter what I tried.
> I think the weak link with it is the software.
> The same hardware used with the David laser scanner software produces much better results.


thanks, I'll see if I can find the david software.

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## Dudemeister

> I had a Cyclop ..... for all of a couple of weeks.
> I just couldn't get a single decent mesh from it, no matter what I tried.
> I think the weak link with it is the software.
> The same hardware used with the David laser scanner software produces much better results.


The Cyclop scanner is closer in functionality to the Atlas 3D, than the David Laser scanner (aka Starter Kit).  That uses a calibration panel with point references behind the model during the scan. A handheld line scanner oriented horizontally is used to brush" the model up & down to obtain a point cloud (the more passes you do, the denser the cloud), then you manually rotate the model 45°, and do it again.

After you capture the model from all sides (8+ positions), you can have the software align the captured point clouds and you end up with a mesh.

The Atlas and the Cyclop use a turntable to automatically turn the model in small increments (at least 800 steps per full revolution), while the camera reads the warped vertical lines the scanners shine on the model/object.

I don't think you can use the David software with the Cyclop or the Atlas, other than removing the laser and camera to use them manually.  Which pretty much makes buying those scanners a waste of money, since you can get a decent webcam and a line laser for under $50.

BTW, unlike the Cyclop 3D, the Atlas 3D scanner is a self contained system that doesn't require a PC to function.  It uses a Raspberry Pi as the controller, and a the end user controls it from a Web Interface via WiFi or Ethernet.   Some people have actually connected a small touch screen to the unit to make it completely independent.

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## scobo

> thanks, I'll see if I can find the david software.


There is a trial version however the full version is pretty expensive.
And I believe they've dropped support for laser scanning in the latest version in favour of structured light scanning (strange, considering the name).

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## scobo

> I don't think you can use the David software with the Cyclop or the Atlas, other than removing the laser and camera to use them manually.  Which pretty much makes buying those scanners a waste of money, since you can get a decent webcam and a line laser for under $50.


That's how I used it with the trial version just to prove that it's the software that lets the Cyclops down. Better software would make it far more useable.

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## scobo

> I also have  an Atlas 3D scanner.  This a DIY Laser scanner that I bought and used with pretty decent results.  It's not in the same class as the Einscan-S, and it does require some post scan work to get a good model, but for the price it's a good introduction to 3D scanning, and I think it produces better results than the higher priced Matter & form and the Makerbot scanner.
> 
> You can see some of my scan results here, and throughout the Atlas 3D forum:
> http://www.soliforum.com/topic/14434/my-atlas-scans/


Yeah, I've seen some of your results over there, way better than anything the Cyclops can produce.
Which again points to the software as the hardware is much the same.

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## curious aardvark

I think the biggest issue witht eh ciclops is the lasers. the lines are thick and blurred, maiing any kind of precision difficult at best. Was wondering if lasers with better prisms would improve things.

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## scobo

Apparently, green or blue lasers give better results.

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## Dudemeister

_Apparently, green or blue lasers give better results._

Not really,  I've been trying to scan really small stuff, and for that, I changed the lasers on my Atlas 3D from the original ones to focusing type, and then even got green versions of the focus type, and it really didn't make much difference.

It really comes down to the software as you said, but it also comes down to the technology behind it.  And by technology, I don't mean the hardware specs, rather the scanning technology (laser, cameras, 3D cameras, structured light, mechanical, etc.).

 On the laser scanning field, I found that the most important aspect, which can affect the quality of the scan, is not so much the quality of the camera, or the laser, but lighting.  If you can control the ambient light to produce nice, even lighting, with little or no shadows, and if you can repeat that from scan to scan, you can probably do a credible job.

Another approach is the stereo camera setup, like the Fuel 3D.  That does a really good job of capturing a lot of detail, in one pass, so scanning bas-relief, sculptures, carvings or faces is it's forte, but not so much when it comes to scanning an entire object 360°

Then you have structured light devices like the Einscan or the David scanners, which do a fantastic job, even though they work a little different from each other.

An alternative to this, is photogrammetry, which can produce really good and detailed 3D models, but requires hundreds of photos from every possible angle, taken with a good camera with a lens free (or nearly free) of aberrations and distortion, and also makes use of very powerful software to stitch those images together into a 3D mesh. Some of this software is free, but the really good ones can cost thousands of dollars  for a license.

Then you find yourself in the realm of $10K+ professional scanners.  Some are designed to capture small objects, others can capture entire scenes with high detail.  

For small sized models in extremely high detail you have the tactile or contact scanners.  Those are scanners that employ a camera, as well as a pressure sensitive pen/sensor, on a free moving arm on gimbals, which is used to "brush" the surface to obtain highly detailed information of the surface.

Anyway, I think that short of spending $10K+ for a scanner, and as long as you don't need to scan very large objects, the Einscan-S is probably the best all around solution.  The David SLS scanners cost about $5K, but I don't think the output justifies the extra money.

For those wanting to dip their toes in the hobby, laser scanners are a real, and possibly inexpensive solution.  If all you want is to scan people's heads, and don't need high detail, a Kinect or the new RealSense equipped laptops and tablets will do the job for very little money.

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## scobo

> Anyway, I think that short of spending $10K+ for a scanner, the Einscan-S is probably the best all around solution.  The David SLS scanners cost about $5K, but I don't think the output justifies the extra money.


I would certainly agree with that.
I tried several laser scanners and the trial version of David with both laser and SLS scanning before settling on the Eiscan which gives the best "bang for your buck", imho.

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## curious aardvark

well looking around the einscan comes in at around the £1000 mark in the uk. 
A lot more than I can afford to pay for something I have no real commercial use for. 

Just have to wait for the new batch of scanners to clear kickstarter and see if any of them are any good :-)

Anyone tried a matter&form scanner ?

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## scobo

Tried the Matter & Form for a couple of weeks then returned it.
It's about the best laser scanner around but I just wasn't seeing the results I was hoping for and certainly couldn't justify keeping it at £450.
I just don't think they've got it right yet with the cheaper laser scanners.
You're right about the Einscan-S, it is a lot of cash and if I'm being honest, I probably don't use it enough to justify the cost but the performance is there when I do need to use it.
Possibly the best budget solution would be David Laserscanner with a 2nd hand DLP projector and cheap webcam. You should be able to put that sort of setup together for about £450 so about the same as the M&F but with far better results.
David isn't quite as automated and requires a bit of post scan work but the end results will be similar to the Einscan-S.

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## curious aardvark

lol I've just got itchy fingers. 
Friend gave me a 128gb ipad air that was dead (would not charge) to dismember. Turns out there is nothing wrong with it - well apart from being an ipad air (both speakers are together at one end - it actually has stereo mono sound). 
So I'm looking at isense - can pick one up for around £70 plus whatever the customs would sting me for. 

But reviews don't look great for small stuff and I don't want to print people - well until I can afford a full colour printer anyway, at which point there would probably be money in it. 

Ah well I'll just have to keep my hands firmly in my pocket till the technology improves and gets cheaper.

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## scobo

Have you tried 123D Catch ?
It's free and the results from it are pretty good, especially if you have a good quality camera.

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## curious aardvark

yes - unless you take the pictures outside at noon on a cloudy day. The results are bloody awful. 
Tried it on pc and tablet. 
Until you can have afixed camera and rotate the model, it's utterly useless for small models. 

last time I ended up with a tripod in the middle of the dining room and walked round it with the camera. 
Unless you use flash, the lighting is too inconsistent and if you use flash, you need to be further away and zoom in, but you need a pretty big room. 
I have no idea why you can't have astatic camera and rotate the thing you scan. That can be easily done on a table top. the lighting remains constant, the focus, distance and zoom of the camera remains constant. 
So, yeah, 123dcatch and I did not get on :-)

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## khaity

Tried the Matter & Form for a couple of weeks then returned it.
It's about the best laser scanner around but I just wasn't seeing the results I was hoping for and certainly couldn't justify keeping it at £450.
I just don't think they've got it right yet with the cheaper laser scanners.
You're right about the Einscan-S, it is a lot of cash and if I'm being honest, I probably don't use it enough to justify the cost but the performance is there when I do need to use it.
Possibly the best budget solution would be David Laserscanner with a 2nd hand DLP projector and cheap webcam. You should be able to put that sort of setup together for about £450 so about the same as the M&F but with far better results.
David isn't quite as automated and requires a bit of post scan work but the end results will be similar to the Einscan-S.


The result well?

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## scobo

> The result well?


Yes, very good results. The best scans you'll get for under £1000.

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## yoda3d

Wow, the result of this scanner are very good

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