The MakerBot Digitizer - Horrible Quality?

[RobH2]

Hi Jeff. That's encouraging. You do have some fairly good copies there. It seems as if the scanner needs something with a good amount of detail to work well. The cat for instance, didn't scan as well because the original had subtle detail.

Your analogy to the computer industry is right I believe and that's what I tell people too. It's coming for sure and in leaps and bounds. It's still perplexing why someone would put those awful scans on Thingiverse. I don't know what their motivation was. I look forward to watching the scanning development. Obviously it's in full swing, it just needs some maturity. Thanks for weighing in though. It's good to hear the perspective of someone who both uses and sells 3d scanners.

[ChiloquinRuss]

There is a couple of issues with the MakerBot digitizer, the most important as far as those terrible scans are concerned. When first trying the scanner the software AUTOMATICALLY tries to send the image to Thingiverse. If you aren't paying close attention you can send some really bad stuff and not know it. The other MAIN issue is there are no tutorials that have GOOD BEFORE and AFTER images. You are totally on your own. I too have moved into the closed in BLACK box for scans. The item MUST show contrast but NO reflectivity. The more accentuated the item (not subtle) the better the scan, but still not a photograph of the original. Most folks are expecting a photograph. I am disapointed in the lack of assistance from manufacturers in NOT providing sufficent documentation to at least give the user a jump start on scanning. In the posts above the anology was made to the early pc days that is a good one. However the majors like IBM and HP DID provide guides for making good looking documents, which fonts looked good together, etc,. The 3d scaning world has a very long way to go in this direction.

Jeff, your company has some great scans posted on your gallery page. How about you folks helping us all out with how those original pieces were tweaked, scanned, and processed. Pick one with some detail and then do a step by step.

OK I'm off my soap box. Russ

[RobH2]

Russ and Jeff, how do the scans look when you open then in a 3d program? Have you tried that? I'd be interested in opening one and seeing what the polygon organization is. If the scanner can get you 90% of the way there with a complex object then maybe some post production in 3DS Max, Rhino, etc., would be good.

As with any manufacturing process there is rarely a single button that you push and get a perfect end product. I'm not implying that you guys expect that but many people want the reward without having to earn it. If you have a scan that I could play with I'd love to do that. I can take about any format. I'd like to see how much work it would take to make a scan really nice. I've been modeling in 3d for 19 years and have some pretty good tricks up my sleeve.

[ChiloquinRuss]

RobH2 - I got one of the very early machines, have upgraded the software each time and I have yet to get a scan that gives me a better result than some of the photo converter software only solutions. Yes I have looked at the file with several 3d softwares and yes they can be fixed, but . . . . The Idea is to take an object, put it on the turntable, hit scan, then print it! We are so far away from that! I have even tried making objects to use as test scan objects just so I can see what the software is trying to do! So far that is a dead end street. What works on one object does not work every time on every object. I have scanned a few figures (O scale for my modeling), sometimes we end up with a chin, most time we don't. Facial features are almost non existent with these small items. It's almost like you need to scan something two or three times as big as what you want to print in order to get something reasonable. If that is the case then the laser / camera / scanner part is way to coarse of resolution to do small objects. I don't have a good answer for you. The controlling software is very easy to use, the resultant files stink! Russ

[urbanmyth]

These are scans. I would think it would be pretty simple to clean these scans up if you know what you are doing. One day we will have scanners that can precisely scan any object, but we aren't quite there yet.

[American 3D Printing]

Russ and Jeff, how do the scans look when you open then in a 3d program? Have you tried that? I'd be interested in opening one and seeing what the polygon organization is. If the scanner can get you 90% of the way there with a complex object then maybe some post production in 3DS Max, Rhino, etc., would be good.

As with any manufacturing process there is rarely a single button that you push and get a perfect end product. I'm not implying that you guys expect that but many people want the reward without having to earn it. If you have a scan that I could play with I'd love to do that. I can take about any format. I'd like to see how much work it would take to make a scan really nice. I've been modeling in 3d for 19 years and have some pretty good tricks up my sleeve.

Hi Rob, Meshmixer is my go-to software for editing mesh files. I know Geomagic is supposed to be good but my reseller wants $8k for a license. I have been messing around with Blender too but haven't spent enough time with it to be proficient. I also have Sculptris and Cubify Sculpt but haven't made the time to sit down and learn how to use them.

I have not done any editing at all of anything I have scanned with the Digitizer, but depending on the size and complexity of the object you get anywhere from 50k to 250k triangles. I have gotten as many as 350k triangles doing head shots with my Sense, especially if the subject has complex hair. I do edit mesh files of people that we have scanned with the Sense, using Meshmixer.

Tell you what, I should probably just upload something to our Thingiverse account then post the URL here for you. I'll try to get that done some time next week. This store is getting busier and busier and it's hard to find time to get everything done LOL!

[RobH2]

Sure Jeff, if you get the chance to do that it would be fun to look at it. I do 3d animation for a living so I have lot's of high end software. I'd really like to bring one of your scans into my software and see how it looks.

Just send me a Private Message so I know that you are back.

[WinceNWine]

I've seen quite a few really nice looking scans, so I don't know what the factor is here, causing some people to have some awesome scans, while other have terrible scans. Here is one I saw on Thingiverse that looks pretty good.

Original:


And the Scanned Copy:

[ChiloquinRuss]

Wince - I feel real comfortable is saying I don't believe that scan came from a MakerBot Digitizer! It appears to be one from a commercial scanner of much higher resolutiion. But believe me, I would LOVE to be wrong! I cannot get any thing anywhere close to that kind of detail. Russ

[WinceNWine]

Wince - I feel real comfortable is saying I don't believe that scan came from a MakerBot Digitizer! It appears to be one from a commercial scanner of much higher resolutiion. But believe me, I would LOVE to be wrong! I cannot get any thing anywhere close to that kind of detail. Russ

Actually according to the thingiverse post, this was done with a Digitizer. I only wish I could find the post now. I forget what it was titled.