DIY and Entry-Level 3D-Scanner Forum

Nice design. I seems to me like a primesense scanner in a new housing.

They say that the 3D Scan software is included. I think the key of sich a primesense based system is the software to get a watertight 3D model.

I there a demo available?

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Bernhard
www.virtumake.com

I ordered this over the weekend. I'm willing to give it a go. I should be able to import the STL format files in Studio Max for fine tuning or conversion to OBJ's. I use the Makerware software for my Makerbot Replicator 2 printer and I believe it reads STL files so even a straight print should work.

Cool, please post your experience with the system

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Bernhard
www.virtumake.com

I ordered this on Nov. 10th and have been looking for an email confirmation of shipment. I finally went online and it isn't scheduled to ship until Nov. 25th? This is odd because according to all information online, the scanners were supposed to be available at all your local Staples stores Mon. Nov. 18th. I went to my local Staples and they hadn't even heard about it. I checked online at the Staples stores and they don't have it listed on their website as being an item you can purchase.

I received the Sense scanner on Fri. 11/22 so it shipped earlier than what was listed on the website. I have been working with it this weekend and am figuring it out how it works best. The hardest part is keeping a consistent speed, orientation and distance when doing a scan of an object. Plus you need some room to be able to move around your model. The bigger the model the more the room you need. This is the one of the first models I have tried. It is 25F outside so I'm having to stay indoors. This is about a 10" ceramic dragon I used as a model.


I used meshlab to convert the STL files to OBJ to import into StudioMax 2011. I did this because for some reason doing a straight import to Max would stall at about 10% and go no further. The import from the Meshlab OBJ's worked as long as they are imported as a single mesh. I did two scans. One at medium - small object and the other as high - small object presets. I made a third model by doing a smooth filter from within the Sense software. I did this to determine if the software would destroy detail of the scan.

I imported all three into Max and compared. I notice the scanner creates a very dense mesh cloud. The medium scan resolution was 91284 points and 182560 faces. The high scan was 86249 points and 172486 faces. The high scan with the smooth filter was 69975 points and 139946 faces. There isn't much difference in faces or points between medium or high but the high quality scan is much more accurate in comparison. The conversion from STL to OBJ and exports to Max likely changed some of the values but visually I didn't note any major difference from the original STL to the imported finals in Max. The blue is high no smooth, the red is high smoothed and the green is medium.
There isn't much difference between the high and the high smoothed but the edges are rounded off and not much detail is obviously destroyed. There is a big difference between medium and high. This is medium. This is high smoothed.
Detail quality is about what I expected. Not super high but not to bad. It picked up the belly ridges of the dragon and I noticed yesterday. I scanned a box of Dr. Peppers and it picked up the printed logo bump. Very fine detail does tend to get lost as well as it has problem with reflective surfaces. For $399 I think it is a good deal. The software is very fast and works pretty good. The only annoyance is the begin scan button is hard to initiate if you are trying to hold the scanner steady and find the button on the laptop. Also, trying to juggle both the laptop, the scanner and then clicking on a button is something I haven't tried yet. Also, when you are done with a scan, there is not way I have found to start a new scan with different settings, like switching to large object or person without first closing the program and starting it again and then going into the settings. Right now you can start a new scan by deleting your old scan after you have saved it but you can't change the size or resolution.

I'm interested in doing some cars and motorbikes but those will have to wait until the weather cooperates and I have some time.

thank you for this report! The scan looks quite nice considering the small size of the object. I think it is a very useful scanner for people and the like. Have you tried to get a colour scan? i wonder if this scanner could be capable to scan a car

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Bernhard
www.virtumake.com

I have been working a bit more with the scanner. I figured out you can change size and resolution settings without having to restart the program. The scanner is capable of scanning in color but I was originally only concerned with the quality of the model resolution. The color texture overlay appears to be fairly decent resolution at the beginning of a scan but as you scan around the object, the resolution drops and the final output is pretty low in my opinion. I did not get to try it on bigger objects over the holidays. One thing that kept from this was that the scanner really only works best when infrared light or reflections are kept to a minimum. During the day the sunlight has to much infrared and simply washes out the scene to white. This limits doing large objects like cars or motorbikes to indoors or very late evenings.

Looks awesome. Ordered one over the TDay holiday. They said it shipped, then said they'd send me an email confirming it shipped. It has been a couple of days and I haven't received the confirmation email. I will post on my experience as it unfolds.

Thanks for the reports on your experiments with the Sense 3D Scanner. I'm looking forward to more. I'm a fan of the Sense 3D scanner; but, at the low cost it's natural that we will have do come up with tricks and tips as to how best to use it. I have noticed, for instance, that ears pose a particular challenge for the scanner so that is one area that I want to try to address with my own tests.

I would also love to hear about the challenges that you have faced when using the Sense... and, how you have overcome them. The tip about daylight scanning was particularly interesting. While I blog about 3D Systems' consumer products, I get absolutely NO advanced information. The Sense was a complete surprise. I'm happy to find a place where other Sense owners have an experimental and analytical approach to using their tools!

Last year, I was a volunteer for the YouthQuest Foundation and now work for them as an instructor at Youth Challenge academies. We used the Sense to scan our 3D class students so that they would have a special personalized 3D printed bust from the class. It worked very well for that purpose. They loved it.