I backed the MINI on Super Early Bird and choose the Standard because I was confident i wouldn’t need a stabilizer, neither a Dual-Axis turntable, but mainly because we were given so poor info on their specs that I didn’t trust their good behaviour. I had the idea that they would suit only a few scenarios and they will end up forgotten in their boxes but now I have doubts.
So I would love to know your scanning experiences using similar devices or your opinions on them to help me decide whether i should upgrade to Premium or not.
Regarding the Dual - Axis turntable, will it make scans more accurate? or will I be getting the same results just by flipping the objects?
Is stabilizer really necessary when scaning outside the turntable (large objects) ?
So, both accessories follow the path of saving time/making the process easier or is there any situation where you would say the object would be impossible to scan without any of the 2 accessories ?
I will be scanning mostly car parts to replicate or to modify. I wont be working with full cars, neither interiors. Just the kind of stuff I can directly print or fabricate in CFRP through small-medium size moulds. Most of the objects could be removed from the car and the advertised 50x50x50cm max scan volume for MINI is enough. So far I’ve been designing everything from scratch and its too much time consuming.
it will proper scan the objects from all sides , so reducing flipping , of course the part that is flat on top the turntable have to be scanned , so you will end with 2 parts instead with 3 or more . I find my objects to be scanned more clean and accurate when using dual axis compared to flipping and merging, less issues with tracking , less parts to be merged .
I did not used gimbal with MINI so I can’t tell you, it is still in production .
If it’s a matter of investing a bit more time dealing with tracking issues, or having to merge 1-2 additional meshes… I think i will stick to the Standard package. You mentioned also that the scans are more clean but, at least in my case, I will have to redo the entire body again so the mesh will only serve as a reference.
Right now I would be investing around 160€ more (with taxes) if I wanted the Dual Axis turntable + handheld stabilizer upgrade. I’m not sure they would be worth it having a regular turntable included on the standard package.
I guess it depends on the number of scans you usually perform. If these addons save you like 4-5 hours per week they will quickly pay for themselves.
You can always buy later if you decide to get the Dual Axis Turntable after the release.
I can’t make the decision for you .
I have a lot of turntables in various sizes but personally dual axis is the winner for me .
I can capture 3 sides of the model in one session without moving it . What leave me with 2 scans to be merged in place of 6 .
I can’t speak about a gimbal for scanning as I never used one for 3D scanning
Anyway you can always do everything manually , without extra gadgets, but I am more than sure that over time working with it , you will return back to get the Dual Axis Turntable , it is not necessary but so damn helpful .
So…i went ahead a few hours ago and upgraded my pledge to include the Dual Axis turntable. Being an addon, i could go back to the initial state if i changed my mind.
Still not seeing the handheld stabilizer justifying its price (96€ with taxes as an addon atm) and i can’t jump in with so little info. Is there any other 3D scanner with this feature on the market? I couldn’t find any.
On the other hand, we do have Dual and Triple axis turntables used by professional scanners. Your words got me almost convinced and after that I spent some time searching for similar devices:
Solutionix introduced in 2016 a 3-axis unit on their Rexcan CS2+ 3D scanner and also with the 2017 C500 model (36-38.000€):
I think you made a smart move with the turntable .
I have my own 3-axis turntable but mostly I use the dual axis function , 360 degrees and tilt front back 30 degrees, the Revopoint design is still in productions, so I am not sure you going to see it on Wednesday in action yet .
I will test them soon once available, but I am confident it going to works great , not to mention they are controlled by Bluetooth so even better .
Regarding the gimbal , the price is about right , plus it also power up your device so this kind of gimbals are not cheap on the market . I did not had chance yet to test it in action so I can’t speak about .Regular gimbals will not works since they do not powering the device and the power cable just going in the way .
So I am also curious about how good it works in practice .
If im not mistaken, the more planes of movement you introduce, the less time the scanner needs to extract data from the whole volume and the point cloud will be completed with less iterations, merging less meshes, and using less CPU/RAM resources.
Yes, as PUTV has shown quick scans are the best. And I like to capture everything on one scan.
I just can not visualize how or what a third axis would be.
one axis = rotates
2nd axis = tilts or flips
Imagine what would it take to scan a Globe completely, rotate and flip.
What else could there be??
The “DIY Scanner” (Built for scanning a person) has three axis of movement,;
X = rotate
Y = Height from the ground
Z = Tilt of the scanner
Z was a great improvement, but I wonder if a forth axis could help further.
An “A” axis which would move the scanner toward or away from a person.
IE when scanning the person’s head with scanner tilted down, it would help if the scanner moved toward in. And when the body rotates it would help if the scanner could maintain the same distance away from the chest and shoulders by moving Toward or Away. Following how someone would manually scan a body.
But you still have the soles on the ground so it is not 100%
XYZ is the limits , making anything else simply double the same work.
In Dual turntable
Forward and backward tilt is the Y and Z
The 360 degree rotation is the X .
There is nothing else as you can capture the globe with that at 99%
An object can rotate within multiple planes …actually infinite planes. And also rotate around infinite axis. So the 3rd plane just adds more points of view to analize the shape of an object from a fixed point (the 3D scanner on a tripod). Since you are doing all the movements at the same time (or scan session) without repositioning the object itself, this greatly improves the efficiency of the data extraction (both in time and computing resources)
Think of the 3rd plane of movement as if the scanner on a tripod could also rotate within the XY plane (the ground) .This rotation equals to “around” the Z axis.
In the case of a 3 axis turntable, its the main platform of the structure [ # 2 on the graphic] that emulates this very same rotation in a sepparate way from the movement of the “plate” where the object is [ #1]). Its much easier to add a 3rd plane of movement to the turntable that forcing the scanner on a tripod to move around 360º (or +/- 180º).
So if you had the chance to rotate your object using 6 different planes of movement it will be even faster. The problem with this is that you’re capturing less and less blind spots of the object with every axis/ plane addition while the complexity of the turntable elevates in a bigger ammount. Thats why you won’t see many turntables with more than 3 axis /planes of movement.
Could seem as overlapping and redundant rotations but depending on the geometry of the object, you will need every angle variation to capture intricate shapes and you can achieve this by flipping the object multiple times or doing almost all at once with a 2-3 axis setup.
The first one had better world center pivot , but this one still not bad . Looks like the dimensions here are not much away from the one you got before .
Looking at the tilt, the height will be not bigger than 2 inches / 50mm
I think so , the new concept is actually much simpler . Since it looks like 3D prototype I don’t know what kind of material they going to use .
Technically the new one looks like more durable with better stabilization , however I liked the pivot better in the first one .
The plate looks much bigger than 120mm in the new one .
Beside the slightly shift in the pivot , the new prototype looks better .
Why is the pivot so important ? Because if you use taller objects, the top of the object will shift a lot from the center when tilted what can cause FOV issue and gain issues that will need to be adjusted hopefully automatic .
Unless we don’t know exactly the dimensions, it will be hard to tell .
Ok the new Revopoint Dual Axis turntable works exactly as my own , I understand now why they changed the design , the preview design did not allow them to capture the object to the MINI 45 degrees angle at 30 degrees. Making higher design would not really fit the tripod design to go with
Shifting the pivot to 30 degrees from the world center reduced the needs of altering the height .
It working well in practice so far, I just have 35 degree tilt in place of 30 degrees but that is not big issue, since you can adjust the angle of the scanner differently .
This is my own Dual axis that I made by merging YT-1000 + POP2 turntable and the plate, so it gonna works almost the same way .
The point of view is from the scanner .
Really nice appreciation !! Thank your for sharing your experience.
You were totally right when you told us that the turntable was still under development, that we wouldn’t get specs and neither real pictures or video demonstrations at that point. And actually its design completely changed in matter of weeks.
I hope they can provide technical details soon both on this turntable, which is looking good so far, and also on the stabilizer.
I love discussing this stuff. Makes the waiting more enjoyable.
