3D Scanning

With the diverse membership here I am curious to know if anyone has seen or heard about a user friendly service or program that can be used to scan an object then scale the object to a desired scale. I had been speaking with the good people at NextEngine and learned that the process is fairly involved when using their scanner and that you need to use their software $$.. Knowing very little about this process I may be asking too much when looking for an option to have a scan done with software that will allow resizing as easily as other 3D drawing software.

I use the printed parts (from shapeways) as masters for RTV mold making and resin casting of 1:8 scale auto engines for the model builder community I belong to. we would like to have the option of scanning a 1:1 scale auto part and have the ability to scale it down to the 1:8 scale.

Would this be a cost effective way of doing things or is the 3D scanning services cost restrictive ?

Currently we have members that are doing the 3D modeling but wonder if the above idea may save them some time as we have been asking a lot from them by doing these for us.

Cheers

Jeff

just my 2-cents before i leave for work.

i heard 3d scanning is very expensive,, we had a horse we wanted to scan wich was 1:35,,, it would have costed us 500euro's to get it scanned.

next thing was, that they said it would be printable,,,
but seems when you scan an object,, a lot of manifold errors will pop up

hope somebody else can help you better!

Check out David laser scanner for a DIY laser scanning. I had limited luck with the free stuff using cheap lasers, but in there forum there are some people with amazing scans.

The price of a scan is very dependent on the accuracy of the scan you want.

I know there is a guy here on shapeways that does scanning..hopefully he will post and give you some help. I would get a scan...if i was at school. This coming fall i will again have access to a 3D Scanner and a CMM arm.

Thanks for the input Jettuh !

Both points you mention are the same concerns that we have had. Both price and usability after scanning for print are what is holding us back at this point. May have to wait a bit for the gap to close between the 2 for prices to drop .

Cheers

This looks like something for us to really look into here. Thanks so much for the link. Being able to do this at the desk would be a great tool !!

Cheers

If I had a few hundred to invest in it, I would. I invested $25? and got recognizable scans but nothing incredible.

Oh and I did a test, using a projector, and a program I wrote to project an artificial green laser. That worked real well, would have been a lot better with a newer higher resolution projector. Those kits aren't too expensive either. They have a kit that comes with a camera, and a projector, and the software. I don't remember what that one is called though, but would give you more consistent results. Also saw a desktop scanner not too long ago I think it was in the $3000 range.

You are right. I know the NextEngine scanner is just under $3000 US. Just a tad steep in price for our use at this time but something to keep an eye on. I'm sure it's just a matter of time and something will come up .

Cheers

I'm not sure what the level of accuracy is (probably low), or if it meets your needs, but someone did an instructable on this topic.

http://www.instructables.com/id/3-D-Laser-Scanner/

One of the items on my (long) to-do list is an experiment with structured light scanning (instructable here, various academic papers give better detail) using a camera and a flash in place of the projector.

But even the basic structured light setup seems to me to have much more potential than the laser-pointer stuff linked above.

Jay Leno has one in his garage - of course!

http://www.jaylenosgarage.com/video/nextengines-3d-scanner/9 44641/