Low budget 3D scanners vs photogrammetry. Which one is better?

Download all the 3D scans seen in the video, on my Patreon page:

PHOTOGRAMMETRY GEAR:
This very much depends on the size of your light. If you have a smaller light you can get something smaller than A2. And of course the other way around.
Make sure you buy the right size for your lens. Or you can get a bigger filter and use step down rings for all your lenses

PHOTOGRAMMETRY GUIDE:

TUTORIALS | 3D ASSETS | TEMPLATES

MUST HAVE APPLICATIONS:

My gear:

Note:
When you buy something using the affiliate links in this video or any of my other videos, I earn a small affiliate commission at no additional cost to you. Your support is appreciated!

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Host & Creator: Dimitris Katsafouros

[LibertyEver]

Thanks for the very useful comparison between inexpensive 3D scanning and photogrammetry. I don't need textures because I'm not doing visual or artistic stuff and only need geometry into CAD, but still find 3D scanning to be problematic. I also use Linux and most of the 3D scanning software is Windows and Mac. The THREE scanner by Matter and Form caught my eye because the processing is in the scanner and the interface is via a web browser. That gets away from issues of operating systems, software revisions, different computing hardware, etc. However, the scanner is more expensive because it basically includes a computer with GPU and that's not cheap. I may only need a hundred scans so it's hard to justify buying all of that computing power to do nothing but make a few scans.

I installed Meshroom and MeshLab, added another 16 GB of RAM to my computer, upgraded to a good mid level Nvidia graphics card for CUDA processing, and I'm designing and 3D printing a photogrammetry light box with a turntable and a lot of diffuse omni directional lighting. The light box will also be useful for taking pictures of the products we manufacture.

[contrarian]

Thanks for the review. @10:00 When you say it looks better in PG (photogrammetry), which PG software did this, and how many photos did you take?

[braccianobracciano]

If today I were considering buying the Revopoint scanner (as it appears in the intro) and saw this video, I would most likely reconsider purchasing that scanner... I suggest removing the Revopoint scanner from the intro because it can't be compared at all to what you presented using your scanner!

I've been using the Revopoint POP2 for over a year. The scanning software is continuously updated and improved. There are almost no tracking issues with it! The stitching of scan fragments also works very well. With default settings and a black tabletop, you can scan the entire object by rotating it because in this setting, the scanner doesn't detect black.
One last thing - textures. This is the biggest flaw of this scanner, although it's not as bad as it might seem. They may not be suitable (not always!) for production needs (don't compare it to photogrammetry!), but for the second or third plan - absolutely.

[TexasDCustoms]

So from watching a lot of your information is wrong, complex objects align easier due to complex geometry, turntable mode works great assuming you are scanning something with asymmetrical features but there are work arounds for this like tracking markers and or random objects in the frame to keep tracking like nuts bolts hot wheels or specifically designed tracking bases. This is not the best scanner in the affordable range. There is a learning curve to doing this well, making a video about how easy or hard something is based on limited experience but the same can be said about having too much as to that person its easy.

[cnccarving]

that pinecone will work with manual alignment
but you have to place around auxillary objects at least 4-5
then the aux objects will help the alignment

the main issue the precision and resolution is solved
beyond that artifical intelligence never going to be comparable with human

so overall this scanner is a true deal
just a remark that the nextengine scanner wasnt better however with all sofware and turn table costed $ 5500 likely 12 times more than this scanner

and that has also much issues with alignments
let alone the artec scanners costing 30-50 times more for not a lot better result

[Plinth_Markus]

Great little review. Sadly a lot of these scanners get a hyped marketing campaign promising the world only to find out that the claims are overstated by a long shot. I feel these companies are tricking people into backing these products on Kickstarter and are then shortly abandoning it for another Kickstarter of their new scanner promising the same things they already promised last time. Great way to get money to do R&D with the money of actual end users. I find this behaviour rather shameful and feel bad for all the people falling for these ...

[MrGTAmodsgerman]

You should have get the EinScan which also plays in the low budget segment but actually deliver on the software due to the legacy. I don't see a point of compareing a proper Photogrammetry setup with a none proper 3d scanning setup. That's unfair.

[BrockGunterSmith]

Dimitris, I really enjoyed the video and found it very useful. It’s been around 15 years since I was regularly 3D scanning objects and doing photogrammetry with what now look like Stone Age tools! 😄

Future Technology Question: Are you aware of any AI and/or ML assisted tools that are available or being worked on that would allow for taking a group of many different photos of the same type of object and constructing a 3D model? My specific use case would be taking a large collection of bird photos of one particular species and having a system be able to extract the bird from each scene and use the various angles and poses to create a facsimile of that bird? With animals, especially wild ones you’re not going to get them to pose for a scan or well structured photogrammetry captures.

I wouldn’t expect extremely high fidelity by the way! Anyhow, just a really wild wish that may not be practical any time soon, but I thought I would ask. Keep up the great videos! 👍

[felicious.animation]

I just got the same scanner as a early backer and have it now here since 3 weeks. I have to say the results are pretty disappointing if you compare it to their promotional videos.

Non of the scans went flawless and I never got a proper scan result. Some areas looked promising, but no model was finally good enough to use. I didn’t expect high end results, but wanted something, which could generate some quick results for the backgrounds. But in my opinion, every scanner / photogrammetry app worked better for me. The meshes sometimes weren’t so precise, but good enough to put the product in the background. But most of all: it was just finished with one attempt. With the seal, I tried several scans and setups but never got a problem finished scan out of it. Also the limited size of the product/area you could scan is a negative aspect. The range of products, fitting is very limited.

I would definitely not recommend buying this scanner or anything close to it.

[danialsoozani]

That's why Elon Musk said lidar is useless and simple "vision" is way more effective. Lidar is good for multipass in survey where lasers pass through foliage while camera can't see them IMO.