I thought I would give some feedback on some issues I have been seeing from some and also after some testing on my end some things that I have come across. My computers are a desktop with 2020 Ryzen 7 3700x and 32gb ram, and 2018 dell xps 13 with gen8 i7 and 8gb ram.
1: I have been able to run full field mode with feature tracking and marker tracking without a problem on a 2018 xps13 laptop with gen8 i7 and 8gb of ram. It won’t do lasers but has no issue with something like a game controller with 3 merges. Fusing and meshing doesn’t take too long at all really. While scanning it runs about 50% at processor and memory and fusing and meshing it runs 90-100% on both but completes the job just fine.
2: To go with the first one here, make sure your computer is not set to startup as “fast startup”. As far as I know this is factory set for windows 10 and maybe windows 11. Instead of full shutdown it does a hibernate which can over a couple days accumulate errors that cause the program to not work. Same as putting computer to sleep instead of full shut down. Google “disable windows fast startup” a you will see how to do so. Restarting does a full redo and after disabling fast startup a regular shutdown will also do a full reset. On my desktop after sleeping 2 times, the 3rd day the program wouldn’t work in laser mode and was glitchy. A restart fixed it. I don’t always shut my pc down as I sometimes have to open it quick. But one should at the end of day do a full regular shutdown.
3: Scanning in feature mode needs lots of features and is best to fill the whole scan window with objects that are unique like crumpled paper. An extremely small part can be scanned this way accurately as the scanner doesn’t necessarily know distances in space if objects are too small for the field of view. Also move scanner slowly and smoothly in full field mode. It is different than laser mode in this way. As the model point cloud builds and starts to look like your object, don’t assume it will keep tracking it. The scanner only sees what is green and sometimes it is easy to assume it knows where everything is at in the scene you are scanning.
4: Do not have any markers anywhere near your object if you are tracking in feature mode. It seems just there presence messes up the tracking big time. I started scanning some objects on top of the rotary table and it wouldn’t track well at all but when just placed on the table the tracking is flawless. Not sure why but there reflectiveness maybe messes with the how it sees the features.
5: Make sure your exposure is set right for the objects. If you have dark and light areas then maybe make a couple different scans at different exposures and then merge them. You can clean the noisy scans before merging so you get the best of both worlds.
6: I have found that in full field fusing at .05mm cause excessive noise and merging at .1mm or higher makes for much cleaner scans. Meshing at a value that corresponds to your fusing also works best and often you don’t need the highest value. My little laptop took very long to fuse at .05mm but not long at all at .1mm and the outcome is better. After fusing and meshing an object, export it and then go back and delete all edits and fuse and mesh again at different values. Do this for a range and then open all your .obj or .stl file in something like blender and compare what you really need. I found even on a small object that fusing at .2mm and meshing at 6 made for a perfect scan that was nice and smooth.
7: Practice. It truly does take practice to get these things figured out. I lost a lot of hair with the pop2 but it was worth it, maybe. Remember the scanner and software don’t know what it is looking at, so don’t assume it should understand.
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