Sense scanner By 3D Systems - $400 Just Announced

[JohnA136]

Thanks for the link! I found the review interesting.

My son got his last week and has played with it a little.. He sent me a pretty neat scan of my new Grandson but has not had any time to print any of his scans yet. Of course, his notebook is too old to use the software so he is running it on his new Macbook Pro running Windows 8.1 under Bootcamp. 2.6 Ghz i5, 16 GB RAM, Iris video card.

Here are a few scans right out of the box, he has some better ones but they are not up yet. The scanner came a couple of weeks after my Grandson was born so he has not had a lot of time to goof with it yet. I hope to play with it a bit this weekend when they are up at my place.

http://www.thingiverse.com/JohnA/designs

[JohnA136]

sssidney, did you get your scanner and, if so, how are you doing with it? I have been following a post about it on another forum and they are really bashing it. I find it hard to believe that the same people who struggle for months to get their printers dialed in are complaining about having to download the software and seem incapable of following the simplest of instructions? There are pretty specific strategies for 3D scanning and if you fail to follow them, you will not be very successful.

My son said it was pretty easy to get a decent scan? I know he was posting images in less than an hour. I hope he brings it up tomorrow so I can play with it a bit. I will let everyone know how we make out with it.

[sandra_sz]

sssidney, did you get your scanner and, if so, how are you doing with it? I have been following a post about it on another forum and they are really bashing it. I find it hard to believe that the same people who struggle for months to get their printers dialed in are complaining about having to download the software and seem incapable of following the simplest of instructions? There are pretty specific strategies for 3D scanning and if you fail to follow them, you will not be very successful.

My son said it was pretty easy to get a decent scan? I know he was posting images in less than an hour. I hope he brings it up tomorrow so I can play with it a bit. I will let everyone know how we make out with it.

hey John, which forum are you following about Sense? thanks in advance

[JohnA136]

We belong to the MakerBot Google Group. After raging for over a week, the topic has finally died down a bit.

If you are thinking of getting one of these scanners, it is made for scanning LARGER objects. The "Small" setting is for items not much smaller than a basketball and large is for people up to about 6 feet tall. It will not do well with real small items. Perhaps the MakerBot scanner is better for tiny stuff?

[sandra_sz]

We belong to the MakerBot Google Group. After raging for over a week, the topic has finally died down a bit.

If you are thinking of getting one of these scanners, it is made for scanning LARGER objects. The "Small" setting is for items not much smaller than a basketball and large is for people up to about 6 feet tall. It will not do well with real small items. Perhaps the MakerBot scanner is better for tiny stuff?

thanks. no, not interested in buying, just interested in the feedback of users.

[My Thing in 3D]

My Sense just arrived today and although I have only attempted a few scans I am already terribly disappointed in both the hardware and software. I would return it right now but they do not accept returns.

[crowbar]

Cut your losses and ebay the thing.

[JohnA136]

As promised, my son brought the scanner and we scanned a couple of busts (mine, his & my Daughter-in Law). My son scanned mine in two tries. I am old and it took me 6 tries to do him. You have to move the scanner and paint all the features, there is a distance ring on the computer screen but I kept getting too close and loosing the signal ( oops!) You have to hold the scanner at the object pointed at the object so that it turns green before hitting "start" so it know what to scan and when to ignore. Then you can clean out any "extra" stuff after the scan with the software.

He did his wife in one try! We scanned my RC PT Cruiser (it is a New Brite and about 18" long). I am hoping he prints a couple of our scans when he gets home. You can see my STL file in my avatar. If he sends me a screen shot of the color scan, I will post it later.

I think the scanner is pretty easy to use, we spent less than an hour scanning, cleaning up files and converting to .stl files today. This is for four completed scans. My son said he only spent about an hour at home scanning a few items and learning the software.

Back in the day, you could have spent all day just trying to clean up and rasterize one scan. The software, while simple, seems to have enough tools to clean up a fairly good scan. My son likes it so far. I will post back after we print one of these scans.

If you are interested, you can see most of our scans on his Thingiverse page here; http://www.thingiverse.com/JohnA/designs

[sandra_sz]

My Sense just arrived today and although I have only attempted a few scans I am already terribly disappointed in both the hardware and software. I would return it right now but they do not accept returns.

sorry to hear that. what is your problem with it?

John, oh so nice experiences! happy to hear that you got it working! seems like you need some practice but it's not a total failure...

[My Thing in 3D]

JohnA136's scans look way better than any of mine so far! Mine have all been deformed very badly and the software is easy to use (trimming and smoothing are simple) but does little to improve on such abstract/skewed scans. Keeping the proper distance while scanning isn't too hard, but its hard to tell what areas you have or haven't scanned. Ears keep coming out all chewed up and misshapen and every nose so far has been crooked and caved in on one side. And overall the resolution is just so bad as to have very little if any use. I hope that I can find some way of improving my results dramatically!