Revolutionizing 3D Scanning: Materialise Gets Serious

3D Scanners aren't by any means new or marvelous. The technology has been available for a while now, at both a professional and consumer level. Hollywood uses it to bring various objects into movies, game designers use it to bring actors into games, and 3D designers use it to bring humans/objects into digital workflows. The concept of it has been around and many companies have experimented with it to varying degrees of success.

Professionals probably have the best of it, mocap has been used for a while now to bring actors into films and games. Most notably in movies like Avatar and games like Beyond Two Souls. However, the printing industry and likewise the entirety of the consumer industry have gotten the short end of the stick. There are 3D Scanners made available to these groups, but, generally the quality has not been as good as those used professionally. This is to be expected given the cost of professional equipment.

Some examples available to us are the

Sense,

 

Makerbot Digitizer, 

 

 and Artec 3D Scanner

 

Each of these devices has their pluses and minuses all sharing one major minus, that being quality of scans. Generally that has also been the biggest problem for non-commercial/commercial scanners.

Materliase is taking a stab a bridging that quality gap. News has recently surfaced that Materialise has begun to embrace professional 3D scanning services. With 20 years of experience already in the 3D printing industry. This giant has the tools and knowledge to crack open what would be considered more or less impossible for others.

Jurgen Laudus, Director of Additive Manufacturing Solutions at Materialise believes it'll strengthen the company's leadership position a the forefront of the 3D printing evolution. “Materialise is committed to providing its customers with high-quality, 3D Printed products,” he said. “The Scanning and Measurement Service is a result of our continued efforts to provide expertise at every step of the design process and help our customers realize the full added-value offered by 3D Printing. Combined with our expertise in software, design, and engineering, this new service helps us truly become the innovators our customers can count on to push the boundaries of 3D Printing technologies.”

The benefit to consumer 3D scanners is as larger companies like Materialise make headway in both research and technologies, smaller companies can more readily make better scanners available to the general enthusiast. Eventually reaching and influencing all fields currently tied to the 3D printing industry, spanning anywhere from fashion to games. Indie developers and startup companies will more readily have the tools to reverse engineer products and scan detailed objects into a digital field at a lower cost.