3d scanners under $1000 worth the money?

[Hugues]

.. Also, I'm not sure that most scanners in the lower price range can really scan 0.1mm. Why would all the scans look so blobby? Or is that a result of some kind of noise reduction?

Hugues, Bobby Lin, dklassen: You seem happy with your scanners. What kinds of things are you guys scanning?

Hi,

My Einscan1 can scan at 0.1mm. I scanned a plane and measured the deviations with Meshlab. You can also look at the attached picture. I scanned my motorbike helmet. At the back of it, they have embossed NOLAN. The thickness of the emboss is 0.1 mm with round edges, same colour as the surrounding. The scanner picked it up. No blobs.

These days i'm scanning mostly parts on my motorbike, which i then bring into my CAD, then design other parts around the scanned part, to mate with it.

NOLAN helmet.jpg

[curious aardvark]

If you look at the matter and form and the einscan - 0.1mm is the stated resolution for small object.

scan something liek aperson and it goes up to around 1mm or higer - which is still a humoungous amount of data to deal with.

And it doesn't take particularly expensive cameras and lasers to get that resolution. But it does require very sophisticated software to deal with the mass of datd and try and decide what's object and what's background.

So yeah at the moment the hardware is cheap and available - the software just needs another generation or so to get to the point that you have proper point-scan & print capability.

One thing it might be worth looking at is an all in one scanner and printer.
the zeus looks pretty good: http://www.zeus.aiorobotics.com/

[scobo]

One thing it might be worth looking at is an all in one scanner and printer.
the zeus looks pretty good: http://www.zeus.aiorobotics.com/

Wow, that sounds like one heck of a machine, if a little pricey.
The scanned/printed key demo video is seriously impressive !

[dklassen]

I offer scanning as a service along with 3D printing. Most of my clients want scans for reverse engineering. For me personally I do a pretty wide range of things just for fun.

[curious aardvark]

yeah it's on my list of toys.
Give it a year or two and most tablets and phones should have 'point and click' 3d scanning capability.

[Andrea]

Hi,

My Einscan1 can scan at 0.1mm. I scanned a plane and measured the deviations with Meshlab. You can also look at the attached picture. I scanned my motorbike helmet. At the back of it, they have embossed NOLAN. The thickness of the emboss is 0.1 mm with round edges, same colour as the surrounding. The scanner picked it up. No blobs.

These days i'm scanning mostly parts on my motorbike, which i then bring into my CAD, then design other parts around the scanned part, to mate with it.

NOLAN helmet.jpg

Hello,

I'm new in the 3d printer world.... I know nothing regarding 3d scanner but your post is very interesting.

I would like to use a 3d scanner for job. I work in a mechanical company and I need to scan some parts in order to save time, compared to draw them.

did you scanned some parts of your motorcycle? what kind of file do you get by scanning? it's a .step file? I will to manage them with solidworks 2015

[awerby]

You can save time by reverse-engineering a mechanical part using 3D scans instead of measuring points and features by hand, but you'd still need to make a CAD drawing based on the scan data. Even a very expensive scanner won't produce a part that will function mechanically without some reworking.

Usually you get a point-cloud (XYZ) or a mesh that connects the dots (STL) from a scanner. I can provide the scanner as well as the software you need to retrieve the design intent and come up with a STEP file to make a workable part; Geomagic DesignX is what I'd recommend, along with the Capture scanner.

Andrew Werby
www.computersculpture.com

[Hugues]

Hello,

I'm new in the 3d printer world.... I know nothing regarding 3d scanner but your post is very interesting.

I would like to use a 3d scanner for job. I work in a mechanical company and I need to scan some parts in order to save time, compared to draw them.

did you scanned some parts of your motorcycle? what kind of file do you get by scanning? it's a .step file? I will to manage them with solidworks 2015

Hi Andrea,

You cannot get directly a traditional volumetric CAD file with this scanner (and most scanners i guess).

You can get a mesh file, extension is .stl, or also .obj.

I did scan many parts of my motorbike. What I do is build other parts in CAD (I use AUtodesk Fusion 360) around the scan. ADF 360 has a function where you can "pull" your CAD design to stick to the scanned mesh for example, can be very useful.