Qlone - an actual functional photogrammatical scanner - sort of :-)

[curious aardvark]

youtube went and got me again.
This time with a phone/tablet based app called Qlone

It runs on android and apple - but, as I found out, much better on apple.
I have an ipad pro my mate gave me when he upgraded (more money than sense).

And a fairly decent android phone with 6gb ram and a good 8core processor.

qlone works by you printing a sheet with a series of black and white squares.
You put your iten on the mat and a dome 'appears' - sometimes.
I would recommend a turntable as well unless you can physically walk around and around and around your item, slowly while hunched in a series of increasingly uncomfortable poses.

To scan your item you click record and gradually turn the item until all of the dome disappears.
It's not as straightforward as that. the dome comes and goes, seemingly at random. And to get the final top of the dome is a true nightmare.

However, it does work.

I reckon on a good day you might get a decent scan in 20 minutes.
An a wednesday morning in september- call it 3 hours before I gave up on the phone and decided to try it on the ipad.

To date I have successfully scanned one item to a fairly impressive degree.
It's cost me £38 - because I had to buy it on google and apple - none of this: 'have a moveable licence' for these guys :-(

Now i bought one of those cheapo scanners a few years back and never even got a bad scan from it. that was £120

I have also tried various phtogrammatical programs in the past with exactly zero success from any of them.
Mainly because getting every single one of over a hundred photos with the exact same exposure while having to walk round the object (none of them allow the object to rotate and you to stay still) is nigh on impossible.

The fact that with qlone you can rotate the object, NOT the camera - makes it the most user friednly photo scanner I've yet come across.

There are a number of caveats:

1) the printed mat needs to be ABSOLUTELY FLAT. tape the bugger down. if not totally flat you will NOT be able to complete a scan. It's the single most crucial thing you can do.

I'm also contemplating glueing a large mat to a removeable top permanently.

2) different sized objects scan with different sized mats.
So print out a bunch in different sizes.

3) do not expect the distance and angle of the camera while scanning to be either consistent or logical.
You'd think a tripod would help - nope, so far i have only managed by holding the camera.

4) getting the stl from your android or apple device to a windows computer - use google drive. Runs on all three platforms and has 15gb for free.

Now that said - is it worth the money.

Of course it's worth the money !

I don't have £4'000 to spend on scan-in-a-box - the next best option.

1) I have succesfully scanned a fairly tricky object - an historical slingstone from guam made from coral.
2) exported direct to an stl from qlone and printed it. No messing about with meshes or worryi ng about whetjer it's a viable model - it just worked.

3) there are various options for editing the scan. Including one that takes the colour information and creates 'bumps' (basically the ins and outs) on the model to match the scanned colours.

So as long as you are not expecting miracles and have some patience - okay a LOT of patience. No, way more patience than that - think waiting for the heatdeath of the universe patient.
Oh and if you are prone to getting frustrated - yeah, you could be in trouble with qlone :-)
And providing you have a decent android or apple device.


For around £17 you can actually create fairly complex 3d models of objects that you can export in various formats and that need no further editing to print.

It requires work, sometimes a LOTof work, BUT It does work !
And it doesn't cost £4000 !

I've no doubt that when i get things setup properly and get a decent turntable, things should improve.

But damn I have digitally photocopied and reproduced an actual physical object !
Something I've been trying to do for over 8 years !

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sloeH7VWWYk

Just printing the better scan I made today, I'll upload pics when done.

If using apple you can even test the scanning process. You wuill need to buy it to export the model, but you can try it as many times as you like :-)

https://www.qlone.pro/

[curious aardvark]

Here's the stone and the print of the first scan - yes it's a mirror image - my fault.

firtscan and stone.jpg

Scan being printed


And the second scan:



The app also measures the thing being scanned.
BUT - only in comparison to the a4 sized mat.
If you use a smaller mat the object comes out larger than reality and with a larger mat, it comes out smaller.

I haven't found anyway of letting it know the size of the mat - which would be useful.

So when you condier tha hassle of normal photogrammetry, this is a major improvment.
Particularly with the built in automatic pointcloud to solid mesh conversion.

Once I've made a better turntable and figured out how to usea tripod.
things should be much quicker.

Bt on the whole - if you own a fast android device or an apple phone or pad - this is a really good and super cheap way to scan things that can be used in 3d printing or ar or as models in video games or presentation software.

The sling missile in question comes from guam and was recovered from the ocean. It clearly shows damage from impact so was undoubtably used in battle.
This dates it to at least 500 years old, and may even have been used in the 2 year conflict between the chomorro natives of guam and the spanish invaders.

It's made from coral - I have no idea what kind - possibly brain coral.
And even in it's damaged state weighs around 70 gms.

Sling missiles spin extremely fast when thrown from a sling - so it would have been like being hit by a cheesegrater attached to a drill !

I'm not sure at this stahe - but I suspect this is the worlds first detailed 3d scan of a coral sling missile.