Sense scanner By 3D Systems - $400 Just Announced

[American 3D Printing]

I ordered one at full retail the day they were announced on 11/18, and it took weeks and weeks to arrive, on 12/9. 3DS apologized, explaining that demand had far outstripped supply, so they gave us a free copy of Cubify Sculpt (smart move on their part, we probably wouldn't have bought it anyway so it didn't cost them a dime, but gave them nice customer relations marks). I can now get Senses through my distributor, Ingram Micro, but at the time I just wanted one right away.

Right off the bat I couldn't get the software to work, it would crash and burn every time I tried to run it. After much back and forth with tech support, we determined that the 1.8GHz dual core Centrino in my Dell Latitude 620 laptops that I use to run my printers was not up to the task. They say you need an i5 minimum, but I have been using it on a Dell Inspiron with an i3 and it works fine.

I am still learning how to use it. It is not nearly as easy as the video suggests, and it is easy for it to "lose tracking". When that happens you need to somehow line up the scanner really close to where it lost it or else start over. I have had to start over a LOT. I consider myself still in learning mode with this piece of equipment and the software.

It comes with a relatively short USB cable, and the only practical way to use it is to cradle a laptop in the crook of your elbow while you carefully walk around the object you are scanning. This scanner does seem optimized for scanning people, but that is just fine, that's the main reason I got it. It is not nearly as accurate or detailed as my Makerbot digitizers, but obviously does much larger objects. One of the market segments I intend to go after with my store is the wedding market, where I can put the bride and groom on top of their own wedding cake.

I have gotten to where i can do busts fairly well, but have only been successful on one out of two attempts to do an entire person, and even that one, it did not recognize the subject's legs as they stuck out from her skirt. The other attempt turned out really badly, with a mutated face, a doubled up hand and one leg ending just above the ankle and the other about midway down the shin.

I have found that busts often end up leaning forward, so I have learned to use meshmixer's slice on a plane function to correct that. You need to use the align function to get the resulting cut normal to the Z-axis.

The software has very few tweaks and settings, it is clearly intended for non-geek, non-hacker types. Once you capture the mesh, you can then trim unwanted parts, then solidify, then trim some more, smooth and touch up. I have found that I don't need to use these functions much and I can do more in meshmixer later on. The panning function only goes in 90° increments, so it is kind of limited too. You must use a scroll mouse to be able to zoom.

I think the solidify function is probably the most sophisticated part of the whole package, and imagine there is a lot of magic code going on there.

You can see images of some of my results in my store here. For the money, it is a pretty impressive piece of hardware. It is NOT as easy to use as they imply, but frankly none of this 3D printing stuff is.

[RedSox2013]

You Know Jeff, that's the main thing currently keeping 3D Printing out of the mainstream. When they can make printers and scanners work just as easily as 2d printers and scanners, things will explode. I think that this new round of printers announced by 3DS and Makerbot this week are a good step in that direction. Thanks for your review of the device.

Where is your store located by the way?

[JohnA136]

He lists Evergreen Colorado in his signature.

[JohnA136]

This is a rough print of a Sense scan. It printed much better on our other 3D printer.

photo (22) by John A, on Flickr

[American 3D Printing]

I need to see more examples of things that were scanned. Very vague video.
Article commenters on Engadget are ripping this company/device to shreds.
https://www.3dprintmanual.com/produc...canner-391230/

We have been selling and using the 3D Systems Sense scanner ever since it came out in late 2013. I have never heard of 3D Print manual, and have no idea where they got their misinformation. First off, the MSRP on this scanner is $399. Next, 3D Systems tech support is excellent, both for us and our customers. Finally, nothing could be farther from the truch when it is stated that "The company that produces the Sense 3D scanner isn't the most well known company in the space". Anyone who hasn't heard of 3D Systems has either been off-planet or under a rock. 3D Systems INVENTED 3D Printing back in 1983 and are one of the two 900 pound gorillas in the 3D world, the other being Stratasys.

In our first hand observation, having done hundreds of scans with the Sense, it is nearly as good as a $25,000 Go Scan that we demo'd. It is not as good as a $35,000 Artec that we demo'd. We haven't used an Einscan but they have solicited us to be an Einscan reseller. We're kind of skeptical of Chinese-made stuff based on our experience with the poor quality of a lot of the Chinese 3D printers. For the price you can't beat the Sense scanner with a stick!