Comparisons

From the many questions I get about it, I know that many readers of my site have questions about 3D scanning with depth sensors for making full color 3D prints. Mainly scans of people to 3D print (and sell) small scale figurines in full color sandstone.

3D scanning with the Structure Sensor (or the smilar, but cheaper iSense) is an obvious choice for this — it’s a reliable and affordable. And the combination with an iPad not only makes wireless scanning possible (which is great when scanning people, especially at events) but also delivers great texture quality because of the generally good iPad RGB camera.

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Over the past months I’ve received a lot of questions regarding this post about the hugely discounted iSense 3D Scanner from 3D System. I’m updating that post weekly with all the facts that I’ve gathered from readers, manufacturers and developers. I advice you to read it if you’re interested in knowing the differences and the reason why the iSense is currently offered so cheap on Amazon and eBay.

But regardless of the information in that post, I was still getting a lot of questions and remarks. So to settle this, I decided to simply an iSense myself — for $58 on eBay including bracket. Since I already own a Structure Sensor, I can now compare them hands-on instead of on claims of other people that honestly didn’t always make sense (pun sort of intended).

Before I continue, I must stress that you should really read the other post regarding possible compatibility issues if you plan on purchasing an iSense at a discount. Mine works like a charm and of the readers that have contacted me, about 75% had the same positive experience and the other 25% had a negative one. Maybe I got lucky, or maybe I just know how to work with this kind of device, I don’t know.

I’m not sure what cause the negative experience for some. Some error messages people sent me sounded more like a defective iSense than an incompatible one. And I got quite a few messages from people complaining about the scan quality of the iSense.

The big question of course is: If it works, is there any difference in scan quality?

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I just got this question as a reply to my Facebook Page:

It’s an interesting one, and the reply I wrote was so long that I decided to put it up here so it’s available for everyone with that wants to start 3D Scanning — and 3D Printing — on a budget:

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