Scanning your own Figurals

The six, initial, figurals and two out of the three globes were created using a 3D scanner. Since it is desirable to print this globes as thinly as possible, it is necessary to print them in ‘Vase Mode’. This means the resulting 3D images need to be edited to make them 3D printable, as a 3D printer has restrictions on the maximum angle that can be printed in vase mode.

Since the scanning and editing only needs to be done once you do not need to read any further, unless you are interested in the process and the ‘fun’ involved.

The are a few 3D Scanner applications for Phones, I recently tried Scaniverse, but was unable to get any useful output. This may have been due to the camera on my phone, I haven’t had the time or desire to investigate further, especially as I already had everything I needed using the scanner below.

There are several types of 3D scanner available, most of the hand held ones seem to start at about $2,000 and go up from there. They are often quite complex, but of course can scan large objects.

Since I really only wanted to scan figurals I was looking for something much smaller, and cheaper, I also reasoned something ‘fixed’ should be able to do more accurate scans.

I came across https://openscan.eu/ who had a few designs to choose from. I went for the cheapest one, this didn’t sacrifice accuracy, and was cheapest, mostly because it didn’t include the ‘camera’ component, the camera was supposed to be a normal mobile phone.

I modified the scanner, slightly, so that figurals simply screwed into the scanner. Here it is with a globe screwed in.

Initially, and for quite some, time all my scans were ‘failing’. Unfortunately, beyond ‘fail’ there is zero additional information available as to why the scan failed, that is, beyond a huge list of suggestions. Working through the suggestions took time, as often I needed to purchase additional bits and pieces. By the time I’d tried everything I was still getting nowhere, although the strongest ‘lead’ was that the mobile phone camera was ‘optimizing’ the photos for human viewing and thus making them useless for photogrammetry, the process used to generate the 3D image. After trying three different phones, and several different photo taking software packages I was still getting nothing.

It was about now I solicited quotes from companies who advertised 3D Scanning services. Luckily only one answered and they said they were backlogged for the next four months.

I found the original author on the net, but he was somewhat reluctant to help. As it turned out he’d discontinued this model of scanner shortly after I’d purchased mine, as the Chinese had started mass producing them for a fraction of what he could sell them for.

Chasing the camera problem angle I purchased a remote for my Son’s DSLR camera and modified it to be connectable to the 3D Sanner controller (both depicted in previous photo)

 Success at last

This image shows some of the ‘junk’ that needs to be removed before the 3D image can be printed.

Other considerations are that the reflectivity of the glass makes it harder to get a good scan. This is easily solved using a 3D Scanning spray, such as Aesub Blue, one of the advantages of this product is that it evaporates after a few hours, so it does not need cleaning off the scanned object.

 To print these objects I use ‘Vase’ mode, which prints the entire object without changing direction or stopping. This makes the print as transparent as possible enabling the most light to pass through.

FDM (Filament / spaghetti) 3D printers are not perfect, the main issue in this application being that each layer needs to be almost directly on top of the previous layer to enable the bonding/formation of the 3D print. There is often a bit of flexibility here, at least for short distances.

In practice, this means that the scans have to be edited to create steeper angles than are in some places in the originals. Santa and Jiminy Cricket I put right way up, Santa loses the curved part of his beard, and the base is flat as this is the bottom layer on the print. For Jiminy Cricket this means his feet are flat, rather than the slight curve in the original. The Candle, Bird, Clown and Lantern have a bit of a dimple at one end.