3d systems sense scanner

My new 3DSystems Sense 3D scanner came in yesterday. It's a super light weight and compact handheld 3D scanner. The software and drivers were very quick to install and then it was a simple plug and play situation to get up and running. You download the software from Cubify, but then you need to have a scanner with serial number to get an activation code to activate the software and scanner. This was fast and efficient by using the Cubify login that I created with the purchase of the scanner. Eric was still here in Milwaukee (as we had been working on some prototypes all weekend), so we tried the scanner out for a few minutes before he left for Chicago. After he left, Maya and I were home alone with Olivia so we did some scans of her, but none of them were that great as she moved around a bit too much.  I set up an old Bultaco engine cover to run some tests on a used a swivel chair to aid it keeping the scanner on target. The scanner is Windows only right now, so I was running the scanner off my Bootcamp partition. It seemed to have a little trouble with keeping on target if I wasn't smooth with my movement as I moved around the object I was scanning. I looked at the computer performance test (built into the software) and it was running off the CPU rather than the GPU. I believe a computer with a fast graphics card would make the scanner work even better. It's already a great little scanner, and the software's patching abilities makes the software alone, worth the price of the scanner. The software creates watertight meshes that are easily exported and printed. I still want to check out the software in more detail. It's fairly simplified for ease of use, so I'll have to see if there are any other details that might prove to be useful in the future. Initial impressions are that the scanner is pretty much a Kinect with great software and user friendly features built in to make it reliable time after time (something that we had difficulty getting our Kinects to be). 

Chad and I ran some quick tests today in the DCRL. The scan above took, approximately 5 minutes to go from scanning him to printing him. Very impressive! We also only scanned from one side of his face (not even a full profile) to the other side and the software interpolated everything behind as well as under his beard, etc. I was floored at how well it made such a quick scan look. This scanner is the next Polaroid! I'll keep playing with it and try to post up more info as I get acclimated to it. Stay tuned...