If we've crossed paths in the past week, there's a pretty good chance
I've scanned you. This extends well beyond the human race, into the
realms of animal, vegetable, plush toy and fruit bowl. Some subjects
were too small to be scanned, some too fidgety and, in the case of my
attempted 3D selfie, not nearly flexible enough. Such issues were mere
roadblocks in my strange one-man journey to 3D-scan the world. I may
have a problem. I admit it. For starters, I'm not completely sure what I
plan on doing with all these scans, but while such questions are
entirely logical, they've yet to curb my enthusiasm for the device.
Sense
is one of those propositions that seems too good to be true: a
user-friendly, (relatively) portable 3D scanner capable of capturing
objects up to 10 feet by 10 feet, and at a fraction of the price of the
competition.
If the product is indeed what 3D Systems claims, it could fill a
major hole in the consumer 3D-printing market. In recent years,
3D-printing companies have largely focused on the printers themselves,
which have gotten cheaper and easier to use. At the same time, the race
to dominate the category has often caused companies to ignore the
question of how those without extensive CAD experience can create 3D
files in the first place. MakerBot unveiled its solution back at SXSW:
the $1,400
Digitizer,
a rotating, desktop scanning bed capable of capturing objects up to
eight inches by eight inches. 3D Systems' Sense takes a wholly different
approach: This is a $400 handheld scanner that can digitize an entire
human being.
Hardware
When the 3D Systems team gave us a sneak peek of the Sense a few
weeks ago, we immediately compared it to a staple gun. It's a statement
we stand by. The scanner looks vaguely menacing the first time you see
it held up to a stranger's head. On closer inspection, there's nothing
too frightening going on here. The rectangular handheld is covered in a
gray soft-touch material with large, engraved Sense logos on either
side. There's a grip in the center, surrounded by a glossy, translucent
white plastic. Why the company didn't coat it in a soft-touch material,
I'm not entirely sure -- that material tends to provide a solid,
comfortable grip. Though, after some light use, the material had already
begun wearing down on the corners, so that may well answer our
question.
On the front, you'll find transparent plastic protecting two cameras
and an IR sensor, a setup that will immediately evoke references to
Microsoft's Kinect.
Just below that is a small 3D Systems logo, so your subject will know
exactly who built the Sense when it's pointed at his or her face. On the
bottom is a port for attaching the Sense to a tripod -- to, say, mount
above a rotating platform, should you want to take a more professional
approach to scanning your objects than a quick-and-dirty hand-held
approach. With a weight of less than one pound, though, it's plenty easy
to hold for the amount of time it takes to scan someone -- or multiple
someones, for that matter. The build quality is also reasonably solid,
though the pieces of the scanner's face pop off fairly easily, perhaps
for repair purposes. If you don't fiddle with them too much, this
shouldn't be a problem.
This being a first-gen product, I can't say I'm surprised that the
Sense is tethered via USB cord. That means you'll need to be plugged
into a PC to use it. Though, as 3D Systems happily points out in the
scanner's press material, it will also work with Windows 8 tablets.
Further compatibility is coming down the road, but in the meantime,
you're stuck with plugging into a desktop, lugging around a laptop in
one hand or picking up a
Surface.
And be forewarned, the cord has the habit of getting in the way as you
circle around your subject. Maybe the company will do away with the wire
for version 2.0 and either relying on wireless transfer or building a
memory card slot directly into the Sense -- though the addition of a
battery would certainly add some weight to the device.
Software
It's worth reiterating that the software is PC-only at launch. In
fact, if you plan on giving one of these as a gift to some lucky Mac
user, there'll be a bit of a waiting period until they can use it. The
OS X version should launch right around CES, in early January. No word
yet on Android or iOS support, both of which will obviously be central
to tablet compatibility. But while the 3D Systems team wasn't able to
get additional compatibility out the door in time for the Sense's
release, it clearly invested a lot of time in building the most
user-friendly experience possible. And in that sense, it's mostly
succeeded. A few software hiccups aside, if you're able to transfer
photos from a digital camera to a computer, you should feel pretty
confident in your abilities to get things going right out of the box.
The UI, whose bright-blue theme matches the Windows 8 aesthetic, kicks
things off with a series of idiot-proof questions.
Fire it up with the Sense plugged in (if you don't, you'll get a
friendly nudge telling you what you've done wrong) and it'll start by
asking you "What do you want to scan?" Below this are options for
"Person" and "Object," along with some pretty basic symbols for the two,
so even if you can't read, you should still be able to work your way
through the process. Aside from these three things, the screen is
otherwise empty. Tap "Person" and it'll ask whether you're planning to
scan a head or a full body. Over on the object side of things, your
options are small (books, laptops, soccer balls), medium (guitar, car
tire, suitcase) and large (desk, motorcycle, sofa). Pick one of those
side categories and you're ready to scan. Again, dead-simple. However,
if you do accidentally tap the wrong option (all right, "idiot proof"
may have been a bit harsh), there's no going back. You've either got to
hope for the best or just close out of the software altogether.
Scanning
Like the software, the scanning experience is straightforward. Tap
"Start to Scan" to, well, you know, and the software starts counting
down from three. Seeing as how there are no physical buttons on the
Sense, there may be a fair amount of juggling involved if you're holding
a tablet in one hand and the scanner in the other. It's best to either
set the tablet on a table to start the process or find a friend who'll
hit go for you. The Sense is a consumer-facing offspring of the
hand-held industrial 3D scanners like the ones a team of
Smithsonian archivists
is using to digitize a small portion of the museum's collection. As
with those devices, the objective here is to essentially "paint" your
subject, moving your hands to make sure the Sense's cameras have picked
up all the information they need to form a full picture of the object.
The software, thankfully, gives you a good picture of what you're
getting as you go along, whiting out all of the areas the camera isn't
picking up.
The amount of time you'll spend scanning something varies depending
on the size and detail of the object, of course, but for the most part,
the actual scanning process takes under a minute. If you've ever taken a
panoramic photo on your smartphone, scanning will be old hat, with the
software telling you whether you're too far or too close as you move
around the subject. It's easy to see why 3D Systems demoed the device
almost exclusively on people; the Sense really feels like a device built
for human subjects. There's still a bit of a learning curve, and many
of our initial attempts were choppy or incomplete, but I felt like an
expert head scanner quickly enough. It's pretty easy to get the hang of
larger objects too, though scanning anything you have to place on a
surface will likely pick up part of the base in the image. But don't
worry; you'll fix it in post.
Small objects are tough, though. And note how the company uses a
basketball as one of the examples of small subjects -- that should give
you a pretty good idea of the limitations here. When I tried to scan
things less than, say, 10 inches tall, we ran into some issues. For
starters, the scanner had trouble recognizing what, precisely, we were
trying to scan.
Things didn't get much better once I actually started scanning. When
the Sense loses its place, the software throws up a gray "Lost Tracking"
screen. When that happens, it's your duty to line up the last scanned
bit with what the camera is currently picking up. The process is a pain
and, not surprisingly, the smaller the subject, the more irritating it
is, as you've got to both line up the object and make sure the scanner
is the same distance it was when you left off. More often than not, we
found ourselves throwing in the towel out of frustration. MakerBot's
Digitizer is definitely still the scanner of choice when it comes to
capturing objects less than eight inches tall.
It probably goes without saying that you're going to need your
subject staying as still as possible throughout the scanning process. In
that sense, it feels a bit like those early cameras -- if the person
you're scanning moves a little, it could throw the tracking off and
wreck your shot (and, since there's no back button, force you to restart
the app). That's all well and good for inanimate objects and most
grown-up humans, but pets, not surprisingly, are another story. I got
frustratingly close to digitizing my rabbit, but she inevitably fidgeted
before I'd gotten a full enough image for a complete scan. Unless your
pet is a deep sleeper, impeccably trained or recently took a trip to the
taxidermist, chances are pretty good that you're not going to get a
great scan.
Seeing as how Sense doesn't know precisely what you're looking to
scan, it also doesn't know when to stop scanning. Once you think you've
got enough, hit the Next button (with a little of the aforementioned
juggling, of course) and the software will start processing the data
you've collected.
Post-production
Processing a mid-size image on the Surface Pro 2 took roughly a
minute and a half. It can feel like a long time when you're waiting to
find out if your image actually took, but that said, it's not long to
wait for a tablet to construct a three-dimensional image. Once that's
completed, you'll see the fruits of your efforts on a white background.
Here you'll get the option to crop the image. If your scan picked up any
unwelcome pieces of a table the subject was sitting on, you can remove
it here, too. You can't, however, zoom in and out or rotate the image
from this screen, so I'd advise skipping straight to the next page
instead.
The Edit page features options for erasing artifacts and solidifying.
Better yet, you can actually rotate the shot here, which will give you a
much better idea of how complete your image is. For a well-scanned
image, this may well be the most rewarding moment aside from any actual
printing. You can spin the image to your heart's content and fully
appreciate what you've captured. If you've picked up any unwanted bits,
tap the Erase button. The tool is pretty tricky to maneuver on a tablet
touchscreen, so it will likely take you a while to get things just right
if you picked up lots of excess information. Also, no matter how good a
scan you got, odds are high you didn't get everything. In the case of a
person's face, there are likely some bits under the chin or on top of
the head that you just weren't able to capture.
That's where the Solidify tool comes in. One tap will help fill in
some of the gaps you've left behind. How well it works depends on how
much of the image you've actually captured. In the case of heads with
small gaps, the tool does a pretty good job making one solid, printable
mass. Ditto with the stuffed animals and even the bowl of fruit. The
textures aren't always perfect and the colors are often off, but you can
correct a lot of that with 3D Systems' Sculpt software. When I
attempted to scan a bouquet of flowers, on the other hand, the results
were a dripping puddle of surrealistic acid dreams that might well have
given Dali nightmares. Unless you're happy with the otherworldly
results, your only recourse at that point is hitting the trash can icon
and starting all over again. Sorry.
The next page, Enhance, features a few more touch-up tools. Here, you
can smooth out rough textures and once again trim unwanted bits. With
the possible exception of Solidify, there's no magic bullet among these
editing tools. Once you've got the scan, there's only so much you can
actually do to the image. 3D Systems has done a good job making things
simple here, but this is hardly a high-end 3D editing suite. If you're
looking to do some heavy-duty corrections, the final page will let you
save files as an STL or PLY and import them into a third-party program.
If you'd like something equally user-friendly, Sculpt offers some
interesting solutions for correction and mashups, so you can, say, put
your face on Mount Rushmore if you see fit.
From there, you can also upload the file directly to the Cubify web offering, if you want 3D Systems to put you in a
Star Trek
uniform. The Print button, meanwhile, will import the file directly
into the Cube print program. If you want to print the image on a
third-party device, you can just use the exported file.
Wrap-up
The first time you hold Sense in your hand, it feels like a
revelation. It's a relatively low-cost device addressing a problem
that's been keeping 3D printing from going mainstream. The handheld does
a solid job capturing details and color for a device of this class, and
the software goes out of its way to make the whole experience simple
out of the box. The Sense is markedly cheaper than MakerBot's Digitizer
and is capable of capturing images larger than eight inches tall; though
when it comes to digitizing smaller objects, MakerBot's offering still
has a leg up.
There are a number of things we hope 3D Systems addresses next time
out. Cutting the cord would be great. The software also has some hiccups
and, in a few cases, the company has sacrificed functionality for the
sake of keeping things user-friendly. And while the product costs $1,000
less than the competition, even $400 is a lot to ask for a product that
you might not use very often. If you're a designer with a 3D printer
lying around, it's a killer add-on. There's also some real potential
here for 3D modelers and game developers on a budget. As for mainstream
consumers, however, keeping a folder of 3D models is likely not enough
to justify the cost of what will, for them, essentially be a toy.
Between its printers, software, web offering and Sense scanner, 3D
Systems is building a robust ecosystem that puts the company in a strong
position to be at the forefront of the home 3D-printing revolution. In a
few years, it's easy to see something like the Sense being a much more
mainstream product. In the meantime, the scanner is ready for the
masses, but the masses are probably not quite ready for it. When they
are, however, they've got some extremely cool technology waiting for
them.
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