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Just saw this at cgsociety and I thought it was amazing, especially the price.

http://www.nextengine.com

They have a demo video, scans at 0.005 inch accuracy (about 1/10th mm) WITH full color, and co developed with SolidWorks so you just bring the scan into SolidWorks, or you can save it as another format. The whole thing is smaller than a laser printer.....

I've seen it, I want it and I want it now!

Actually it would be hard for me to justify it at the moment, but if the right contract comes up, that will cover the cost -- probably will spring for one.

The only really negative against it is its small scan area. I'm currently looking at job that would suit a large area scanner but the price tag for something like www.handyscan3d.com is around $40,000 US opposed to $2,500 US for the nextengine one.

Hence I'll probably end up buying Photomodeler www.photomodeler.com for this particular project.

Mine is being delivered in June -they emailed me last week

I saw it at sww and I already could have used it for 3 different jobs. The scan area is actually pretty good considering how well it stitches multiple scans together. On their site there is a sample of a automotive rim.

Perhaps I should have said not too portable

Could you send me a file of something you've scanned, when you get it. I'm very keen to see what sort of model it produces (parasolid I assume) and the quality?

very interesting

Thanks thanks thanks for this great link Mihai!!!!!!

and if I wanna scan somebody's head??

Cyberfish_Fred wrote:and if I wanna scan somebody's head??

why not

Thought I should mention that as far as I know this scanner was built to work only with solidworks2007. That's why I'm waiting until june to receive mine, they are shipping at the same time. Although I would be suprised if it stayed without a standalone app for long.

b-kandor wrote:Thought I should mention that as far as I know this scanner was built to work only with solidworks2007. That's why I'm waiting until june to receive mine, they are shipping at the same time. Although I would be suprised if it stayed without a standalone app for long.

Hm, but they say at the techspecs that Scanstudio can be used standalone already?

steff

Yes I think so too, they mention that scans can be saved as stl or vrml and other formats.

b-kandor, PLEASE let us know how it is when you get it, how easy/accurate the stitching works etc...

Thanks alot for the link, Mihai!

~JD

I certainly will!

And I'm glad it's standalone already - they obviously skipped that info at the demo I saw. Since it runs as a plugin inside solidworks that is how they demonstrated it.

But wait.... they also said that it wouldn't be released until sw2007 came out and the implication was that that was because solidworks would be required to run it. Strange?

I love the fact that it is photographing it at the same time it is scanning, then the photographic info is automatically mapped onto the point cloud. It keeps making me think there must be a way to scan and create materials or displacement maps?

Kandor

Me actually wondering if the color/texture information are being captured by photographic means (and therefore saving and mapping a digital image) or if color information are being captured on a point basis (with possibly true RGB values of the measured points). Any idea?

Well, the unit uses 2 laser arrays for point scanning as well as 2 cmos chips which are all imaging at the same time. I have no idea how they are indexed together.

If you go to their site and view their gallery you will see what the output looks like.

I took your link Mihai and posted on the RhinoNG .......just to see if any Rhino ppl are aware of it and possiibly plan on using it. ......nice link.

Having one would be great. So, with the photomap also being recorded, .......I'm taking it that you would also use that info to render with .......of course, right?