Scanner

I just got in the MatterAndForm scanner today (the ones Amazon/Woot! had on sale) will be doing some testing.
Don't usually need it (SolidWorks, well, works) but for the lower price I figured it might come in handy

Trying to get it set up in a bright enough corner near the printer computer.

I'll try to scan some stuff tomorrow between bouts of printing and report in on the results. It is a tiny little unit and well packaged at least.

 

One thing I will say (even though I don't have pictures yet) is that your really should get yourself a warranty through SquareTrade (or something similar) when you buy this. It is much like the early Robo in that there is no real warranty and certainly nothing longer term. It costs enough that popping an extra 10% for a 3 year warranty is not silly.

It is well assembled and well documented.

They also have a support forum (which I have not yet used, but does seem active) and support videos which is a good plus.

I will likely post a video as well

 

First pic.

Doing the first test scan.

The software walks you through the calibration. It is easy enough to follow.
Some of the advanced tuning for the actual scan is a bit confusing at first -- read the docs it helps.
I'll post the STL it generates when it finishes.

 

So far, I'd say the results are mixed.

I did a small (2") mono-chrome model and it did a fair (but on the poor side of fair) job of scanning it in.
This was with zero tweaking/tuning. I then tried a 10" color model and it did great for everything NOT WHITE
So, I went back did some tuning/tweaking adjusting of the scan area (changed the backdrop from white to black to add contrast) and kicked that off again as a color scan. It is looking much better now.

Since you can do multiple scans of an object and then merge/combine them I have a high hope that it will actually work this time. Certainly if we combine it with the previous scans.

-It needs light. A lot of light (nope, even more than that).
-It needs a way to enhance contrast so while a WHITE background might normally work, you might consider a BLACK one as an alternative.

I suspect that once we get 'learned up' on how the scanner behaves it will be a useful tool. At the moment we are still coming to grasp with it. I am going to build a light box for it to scan in and line it with really bright LED lights.

 

P.S. for small models it might well be faster to just cad them up yourself Fast it is NOT.

 

Yea, I can see that . Thanks.
It had a tough time with white when I defaulted to the white background. Made those parts invisible
Switching to black helped. Going to have to pay attention to that stuff I guess.

 

well, I have not done much with this since the initial experiments.
My results were that as far as the scanner is concerned it is a decent unit.

Things to consider...

Single color is more effective than color scans.
There is a lot of clean-up to do for the model when the scan completes. Mostly smaller stuff, but you really have to go over the entire model.
This is NOT for people who want to avoid 3D modelling and just scan an object and print the result. I an not sure there is a scanner out that would meet that requirement, yet.

So, for fairly complex models that you don't want to do from scratch it is a good start on getting them built. You will save more time in getting from nothing to a workable STL than if you created the object yourself...probably. If sizes/lengths and the like are critical this does help.
I have not had time to test the clean-up routines it uses to any great extent.

However if you think you can scan-and-print... nope. Perhaps on a very simple model (but then you can just do it yourself even faster).

 

The BEST thing is to learn 3D modelling

You should be intimate with SolidWorks, Blender, MeshMixer and the like (which you use rather depends on the end goal/model type).