Last week we published the first photos of Rubicon’s new portable scanner; however a good deal of the information on the new system was mostly suppositions based on Rubicon‘s original desktop 3D scanner technology. Now, more exclusive photos and details have emerged of the new portable system and it is starting to look like a very interesting product for a consumer 3D scanning sector that is practically begging for affordable innovation.
While there are no details yet on the possibility to use it as fully stand alone system, with battery and SD card, what we do know is that it will measure 180x130x35 mm and that it has a handle to hold it and scan around larger objects, a lot like the current portable scanner current market leader Artec EVA.
The Rubicon Portable will be able to capture data with a 200 micron precision level (while the Artec EVA goes to 100 micron, but the two systems will likely be in very different price categories), and it can be used at a distance between 200 and 500 mm from the object to be scanned. Its capturing technology will employ two lasers, one to generate the pattern and one to create the 3D scanning line.
Everyone who is entering the 3D printing consumer business is sooner or later faced with the question of which 3D scanner to buy, whether to make do with a Kinect (or the Sense, etc.) or invest in a more serious Artec, Geomagic Capture, or other scanner, knowing that they start at $10.000 and that the real professional 3D Scanners cost several tens of thousands of dollars. Currently the only mid-range offer is Fuel3D’s Scanify, but the Rubicon Portable might prove to be an even more affordable, intermediate-level solution.
Davide, you forgot about this one: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/681809941/einscan-s-fast-accurate-safe-3d-scanner-for-3d-pri/description
sub 100 microns precision for less than 1’000 usd.
It’s beautiful!!
“Currently the only mid-range offer is Fuel3D’s Scanify” What about Next Engine?
What is the price range of this Rubicon Portable? when will ti be available?
the price will be about 1500-2000$ and it is expected to be available in May.
thanks!
emarugby79, the price will be about 1500-2000$ and it is expected to be available in May.
or… use a good dig SLR and Agisoft’s Photoscan in a very potent PC. The results… which may take awhile… are hard to beat.
Yet the result might be far from 200 microns.
do you think this could be used to scan a statue or a bust in a museum and then reproducing it?
from the specs it seems that the range and precision would allow for such use but i am not sure how much data it can handle at once
Data is being handled by the PC, not the scanner itself. If the statue is really big, larger then a human, and your PC won’t be able to handle such amount of date, you would be able to either scan it in parts or use a lower resolution.
thanks for your answer
what do you mean by handled by the pc? doesn’t this portable device have its own internal (or SD card) portable memory?
Not, at least not the first generations, that is expected in May. It would be using a USB3 cable to connect to a PC. Second gen maybe would have a battery, micro SD card and would connect to a tablet. Having it completely autonomous would be a bad idea, as it would be impossible for the user to understand, which areas of the statue he had already scanned and which ones he didn’t.
thanks Robert.
I can imagine a couple ways of keeping track of what you’ve scanned, like a laser pointer (or a line of laser pointers)
i guess that it is not the tool I thought but still a very very good one.
any idea of the computer specs?