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Symbioteyesterday at 11:30 AM0 repliesview on HN

I bought the OpenScan Mini kit for €170 a few years ago, mostly just to play with it. I've tried scanning things like

- flowers

- dead beetles

- model soldiers / Warhammer

- board game components

The examples are all better than I've achieved, and I could probably improve, but it's a fairly slow process, and difficult to know what to do to get better results. The Openscan Classic has a static model and the camera moves around, which would reduce vibrations and probably helps. Maybe using a professional camera would help too.

If the target isn't naturally 'rough' like a flower or stone, you need to add dots so the photogrammetry has something to align upon. I bought a professional scanning spray, which makes white dots which sublime after a while, but unfortunately it sublimes far too quickly — before the scan is completed. It's probably intended for use in an unheated workshop (e.g. scan a car for designing one of those wrap-around plastic banners).

I got the best results airbrushing white/black paint onto the Warhammer figure, but that's only acceptable if it's not yet been painted.

The kit itself is a bit janky, though mine is 3 years old now. I think the photogrammetry service is the most important part, and you should note it's not open source. When you purchase the kit you get a decent amount of credit to use the service, and can buy more credit as required. I quickly gave up trying to set up open source photogrammetry software, as so far I haven't needed to top-up the credit anyway.