Z Corporation debuts "world's most affordable" portable 3D scanner, still more expensive than your car
By Donald Melanson 
posted September 17th 2009 6:19AM
posted September 17th 2009 6:19AM
Sure, you might be able to get by with a home-built, even Lego-built 3D scanner in a pinch, but those looking for a truly portable, off-the-shelf solution have so far been limited to pricey options like Z Corporation's ZScanner 700. Well, it looks like good 'ol Z Corp has some good news and some bad news for you. The good news is that it's knocked over $10,000 off the price for its new ZScanner 600 model. The bad news? It'll still cost you $28,900. That'll get you a sampling speed of 18,000 measurements per second, however, along with an XY accuracy of up to 80 microns, resolution down to just 0.1 mm, a depth of field of 30 cm, a FireWire interface, and Z Corp's own ZScan Lite software (Windows only). It also uses an eye-safe laser, so there's nothing but hefty credit card bill standing between you and a trip to the uncanny valley.
[Via SlashGear]
[Via SlashGear]
Pretty cool. I want it.
Well, most of the things on here are more expensive than my car. That's not saying much since I have duct tape keeping it together... fml.
lol not my car
Well duct tape is the all American solution to everything...
http://www.hulu.com/watch/96105/the-jay-leno-show-duct-tape#http%3A%2F%2Fwww.hulu.com%2Ffeed%2Frecent%2Fvideos%3Frd%3D0
You know archeologists and they always finding pottery? Well my idea is to use a scanner like this, scan all their pottery pieces into a database and develop a software that will run through all these scans and put the pottery pieces into their correct piece. Save the archeologista a ton of time trying to put it together. If anyone wants to use this idea and develop something along these lines, I will accept 5% of whatever profit you make.
Your idea? Not anymore it's not!
Actually i saw something like that on the discovery channel a few years ago so you aren't the first to come up with it.
The archeologista aren't gonna like that one bit. There are literally TENS of people who would be out of a job if that software comes out. ;-) You'll have some angry, magnified-specs-wearing, white-lab-coat wussies painting meso-Egyptian insults on your car.
You'll come out one morning and be like, Bird, Eye, Man with Dog Head? YOU SON OF A B!%$#!
This technology doesn't make much sense, yet. It's more expensive than hiring a very good modeler to do the job for you from photographs.
When this thing gets under $500 USD, then we'll be talking. But until then, humans are cheaper, which sucks, if you ask me...
* goes back to fiddling with polygons *
even then it will still be cheaper to hire a modeller from india
I used to do model.
No, not like that.
I used to use Z-Modeler back when it was in version 0.9 and back when your Kyro II would hate you for making a model that had more than 6,000 polygons. I wrote plug-ins for Oleg to support new games. I've lost so much geek cred in the meantime, it's shameful.
It was a fun hobby and it TOOK FOREVER, because I couldn't afford DSL so I couldn't pirate Maya, this was before they started giving it away to hobbyists. I had to do my work polygon by polygon. I got carpal tunnel, but I made some cool cars for Need For Speed 3, 4, and Hot Pursuit 2, not to mention a few really nice models for Racer: Free Car Simulation.
All that said, I would've much rather had a 3D capture device and spent my time optimizing the mesh, creating textures, and tweaking normals.
There was that one time, though, that I emailed the guy who designed the Saleen S7, and he gave me his Rhino nurbs curves to work off. That was friggin' cool.
Had a fellow come in and demo this to the company I worked for a couple of years ago. Humans produce much more coherent meshes and get greater detail with fewer polygons. It was "meh" at best.
The engineering group I use has a 3d scanner and a 3d printer.
They can "Beam" things across the room!
This is just nonsense...Why do I need this, when I can easily model, texture and even render any object in 3dsmax??? Except this thing is less than 1grand I really don't see any use for it.
Really? To prove your point, I'd like to see you accurately model and texture a person's face. Please make it identical to the original person (within a few thousandths of an inch), and do in under 15 minutes.
Use the woman in this video as a reference.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EblHQEdm-QM
youtube.com/watch?v=EblHQEdm-QM
Awaiting your response...
This technique does make sense....
3d scanning is usefull for quality control (not this scanner) and reverse engineering. If you have a complex multi curved object it is much faster to do a scan and afterwards start working from there.
There are already cheapers scanners (mostly fringe projection) available. Well bellow 20k they are just not accurate.
Heh.. try finding a car that cheap here in the Netherlands.
Yanks and their crazy cheap cars (and gas)...
you won't get an Audi S3 for that money :)
Wow... you're so awesome. I wish I paid too much for a souped up Volkswagen Golf.
Every comment here is either "I can model 3D wayyyy better than that stupid scanner" or "My car is worth wayyyy more than $28,900"
Gotta love the insecurity.
BTW it looks like Wall-E's head... just sayinnn'
Has anyone tried that open source software to make a 3D scan using a webcam and a laser level?
http://revision3.com/systm/laserscan/
From what I understand of the technology, the scanner part isn't the really challenging aspect, it's the software that takes that data and constructs the 3D model. Any scanner with this type of system is just a bundle of lasers and a webcam.
Engadget, you guys have obviously never heard of Nextengine.com
They have a desktop 3d scanner that outputs stitched polygon volumes in minutes, for under $5000.
When I worked at a toy company in LA a few years ago, we beta tested their first gen product. They have come pretty far since.
They don't have the precision of these z corp products, but they would be great for the game industry etc.
Notice they say "up to 80 microns" - that's because you usually don't get the theoretical maximum accuracy with the ZScanner. NextEngine's scanner consistently delivers 0.005" accuracy, or about 127 microns.
NextEngine's 3D scanner has higher resolution, captures full color, and is under $3k. The system comes with software powered by RapidForm (costs about $20k standalone - google it), and a robotic positioner. No size limit.
I have one. Prepare to spend the extra $10,000 on reflective dots.
Aren't there plenty of technologies out there that can construct 3D images from regular pictures? Microsoft already has PhotoSynth that works fairly well. All you would have to do is take a million pictures of an object and have it stitch together. There has been talk of MS using video for this as well.
i say google should buy a version of this on steroids and attach it to a bunch of predator drones and fly around and model the world.
This the same company that makes the camera that Natal is based off of? (Z-Cam I think)
I had this demoed at my previous employer. It worked well, but not as quickly as you would think for being hand held. I was able to take all necessary major dimensions to reverse engineer existing parts faster with a FARO arm. If you need an exact scan of something's entire surface it worked well. We couldn't justify the expense though.
Anything to help small companies achieve same as a big one!
3d porn yah!