"New" 3D Scanner from NEXTENGINE

[GAWnCA]

Brian,

What is the nano-drive for?

I ordererd mine back in march my shipment has been delayed till the end of august.
They did send me a thank you with a 1 gig nano drive to keep me happy.
I will be using mine to duplicate and scale carvings I make, and surely will find many other uses for my sign and furniture business.

Brian

[brianh]

They sent the nano drive as a thank you for my order, and I think goodwill so orders do not get cancelled.
Of course the more I wait the more I want it.

[Kiwi]

The nanodrive is a 1GB USB2 keyring storage device.
I think all customers who ordered early received one as a thankyou.

[tungstenfish]

I am yet another potential buyer of this NextEngine 3D scanner, and I've scoured the net looking for reviews to no avail, just like the rest of you guys.

I am really eager to hear about hands-on experience with this thing - if there's anyone out there who has one, please, don't hold back!

Jonathan.
Washington DC.

[Kiwi]

tungstenfish
I have received a unit but now away to upgrade my PC. USB1 is certainly not up to it, 15 min per scan.

[carveguy]

I have recieved the flash drive but still no scanner.

I agree with brianh, the more I wait the more I want it.

But I glad hear some people have recieved their scanner.

Has anybody tried the color/texture option yet?

carveguy

[brianh]

Mine has shipped and as luck would have it I will be going out of state for a week to do some work, as soon as I can I will post results.
Brian

[carveguy]

Got the scanner last night!!
The first scan (small polar bear sculpture) was done 20 minutes out of the box.
It also included colored texture (the sculpture is white) as seen is this render from Rhinoceros.
Now to learn stiching, hole filling, etc.

Overall the first impression is very professional hardware, software and even packaging.

carveguy

[brianh]

Got mine also, I have found in the limeted time I have had to use it dull toned targets scann better.
A program I am using to clean up the obj files is http://anim8or.com/
the progran is free and powerfull.
As soon as I get over the workload in my shop I will play with it more.
It is very easy to set up.

[tungstenfish]

Thanks for the info, carveguy and brianh - it's great to see your posts. I was beginning to wonder if the Nextengine was like "vaporware"!

Can you tell me: are you using SolidWorks? I'm not clear whether I have to shell out extra cash for SW in order to use NextEngine.

Also, about how big is that polar bear sculpture, and how long did it take for the actual scan (one orientation)? I'm wondering what resolution to expect in practice.

I hope I'm not being too much of a pest!

Cheers,
Jonathan.

[diarmaid]

Can anyone tell me, would I be able to scan 3D objects with this then use a CAD/CAM program to convert them into something like these vectorart 3D graphics ( http://www.vectorart3d.com/ ), to then carve them using my 3 axis router?

What CAD/CAM program would I need?

Thanks.

[Kiwi]

diarmaid
A program Mesh-to-Solid is a Plug-In for IntelliCAD. $195 USD
Each Mesh-To-Solid license comes with a free commercial license of IntelliCAD worth 250 USD.
http://www.sycode.com/products/mesh_to_solid/index.htm
When opened as STL (NextEngine saves as STL) and saved as SAT this can be opened with BobCAD-CAM and tool paths generated.
One problem I've encounted is the file size from the Scanner can be too large for the version of Intellicad which comes with Mesh-to-Solid to handle.
I believe any CAM program that can open SAT or 3DM will be able to generate your tool paths.

[carveguy]

tungstenfish - You do not need SoildWorks to use the scanner (although the Scan-to-3D plugin looks like a good option when business picks-up). Scanner output is a polygon file (STL, OBJ) so using a poly modeller (Silo, anim8or) can modify the file directly. The bear was 3" high, scan 1.5 mins at .005" resolution.
diarmaid - I pulled the polar scan (one scan, holes included) into VisualMill and can create a tool path like Artcam.

carveguy

[ISO Coder]

Carveguy, would you be so kind and post a STL file from one of your scans so I can se how it turns out, thanks.

[diarmaid]

You guys might be interested in this 3D scanner. Its much cheaper but I dont know anything about it.
http://www.camtronics-cnc.com/

[tungstenfish]

carveguy,
Good info - thanks.

[brianh]

I have done a few scans now and have found the following so far.
the different settings on the software make a difference on the quality of the scan a lot. I did one scan that is not posted on three pickup settings and eliminated most holes. the scan is on another comp that I dont have at the moment.
I toolpathed and cut the eagle medalian it worked out fine, I need to brush up on my freeform 3d editing skills to really take advantage of this.

[tungstenfish]

brianh,
I'm wondering; about how big are those items and how long did the scans take? Can you adjust settings to increase speed on smaller objects? I'm thinking of doing scans in a CNC environment as part of a workflow - speed would be important.

Thanks for your post - great images.
tungstenfish.

I have done a few scans now and have found the following so far.
the different settings on the software make a difference on the quality of the scan a lot. I did one scan that is not posted on three pickup settings and eliminated most holes. the scan is on another comp that I dont have at the moment.
I toolpathed and cut the eagle medalian it worked out fine, I need to brush up on my freeform 3d editing skills to really take advantage of this.

[brianh]

The objects are both about 2" tall they took about 3 minutes for the scan to complete. The speed is controlled by the resolution of the scan setting.
I usually still have to do cleanup on spots with missing data but I am getting better results with practice.

[spydermeister]

Mine has been ordered, and the scheduled ship date is Oct 31st.