I have a Creaform MetraScan 750 at work. It's pretty neat, can get 0.005" accuracy or less out of it. We also have a HandyScan with single line mode for very small parts.
Granted, at $150k system cost, it is slightly out of the layman's budget range...
An OpenScan kit is something that's been high on my list for hobby purchases for a while. It looks pretty functional from the YouTube videos I've seen and my printer is fully capable of making the frame.
Nothing comprehensive but the weapon holster company Trex Arms has a video review of the Einscan-SP that is like 5 years old.
Now I get that's not super helpful but the interesting part is that they scanned a ton of handguns with combinations of optics, lights etc to make their holsters. They found out how tedious of a process it was so they made the files open source. So you can see the quality you'll expect when you compare spec sheets to other stuff
Fair. "Far better than I was expecting for $30, but with limitations." Can't really scan anything less than about 4", but you can scan an entire room or car which is neat. My face came out really good.
What's up with the abuse of the word open lately. I had a look at that project to see how they were doing the conversion, but I couldn't find it. But I found this:
Short answer, yes! OpenScanCloud (OSC) is and will stay closed source...
Your data will be transferred through Dropbox and stored/processed on my local servers. I will use those image sets and resulting 3d models for further research, but none of your data will be published without your explicit consent!
I feel like I'd rather use Autodesk at that point. At least I know what I'm dealing with right out of the gate.
LIDAR sucks, accuracy wise. If you want accuracy, and hate yourself, then you need an iPhone XR/XS because that was the generation with the most accurate FaceID (for whatever reason). Or go photogrammetry, the LIDAR can help but isn’t the main thing there… this is both free and great. With a Mac you can get the data processed faster, or it can be done (paid) via cloud, or with less accuracy and a bit of patience, on device. It’s not going to be a professional solution, but depending on the task it works and chances are the hardware is already there :)
I have no experience with it, but this is why I’ve mentioned it - for ma y the hardware is already there, or they can upgrade to it and enjoy the additional benefit;)
I guess it all depends on how much scanning you plan to do, the size of things you want to scan, and how accurate you need the scans to be. Out of curiosity, what are you looking to scan? Is it something that can't be modeled in CAD software?
At the risk of giving you yet another option - Teaching Tech did a video on a neat scanning rig called the OpenScan Mini. Looks like someone linked OpenScan below as well. You build it yourself from electronic components, a pi, a pi camera, and some printed parts. Results look pretty decent for what it would cost to build, and probably worth the time and effort if you plan to do lots of scanning.
I would like to get one for our club but I can't understand the wide variety of prices. $150 ? $500 ? $2000 ? $10000 ? $75000!! ? What's the cheapest that is not a pain to use ?
Have access to a quarter million dollar scanner from about 15 years ago. It still beats the pants off anything cheaper than 8 grand these days.
You pay for software that can handle millions of points, hardware that can stream a lot of points to the pc. A wide dynamic range to scan, nice matte white, chrome or dark black objects. And raw precision to cast and track very fine details
Your best bet is to do some searching around and find a company to do it for you. I work for one of those companies. I play with the real deal laser scanners every day and can confirm that there sure is a reason why a creality handheld scanner costs a couple hundred bucks and a Ziess handheld scanner costs 70k.