Why, just the other day, 3D Systems announce the Geomagic Sense scanner aimed at the home user and hobbyist with a few millimeters of accuracy and handheld coolness for $400 bones. Just think though, professional scanning with 60-118 micron accuracy and a desktop scanner/tripod/software/power cable could be yours for just “$14,900 to $24,900.” (Yes, power cable included.) That’s the price range on the new scan n’ CAD product bundles from 3D Systems’ Geomagic branch, Geomagic Capture, a range of product packages that combine a hi-res desktop scanner with SolidWorks, SpaceClaim, Geomagic Design X (formerly Rapidform XOR) or Geomagic Design Direct (formerly Geomagic Spark built on SpaceClaim) modeling software.
Capture the Awesome
And by awesome, we mean, capturing any object within a 172 to 260mm (diagonal) field of view with a scan rate of .3 seconds sucking in 1.97M polys at .162mm point-to-point. (breath) That object could be the superior part of a competitor, the front cowling of your girlfriend’s Ducati or the pores on your boss’s nose–all fair game with this set-up. The scanner is the meat of this meat and potatoes meal, but the software aspect can’t be left out. The starch starts with plugins for your fav 3D modeling software, SolidWorks or SpaceClaim–we expect these to be the lower priced options–with other options for two of their own modeling applications, Geomagic Design X and Design Direct, that allow you to suck and slam that scan data right in as well.
Now, we mentioned the design-based packages, but there are also inspection-based packages that give you the option of snagging that crazy high-res scanner, plus Geomagic Verify (formerly Rapidform XOV) or Geomagic Control (formerly Geomagic Qualify) for all you QC fiends out there. Overall, they’re some packages that make a lot of sense if you’re already in the market for scan n’ cad or scan n’ inspect packages. You will want to read the fine print in the FAQ’s though, for $14,900 to $24,900 you won’t get color data from the scanner, only geometry. You’ll need SolidWorks 2013 or 2014 and bananas or metal fragments are the only forms of payment accepted–just kidding on that last bit. Full press release below.
