Eora 3D Scanner Launches Today

An inexpensive, portable 3D scanner is set to launch today on Kickstarter. 

The Eora 3D Scanner is an attractive cylinder that attaches to your smartphone to transform it into a functioning portable 3D scanner. You’ll need an iOS or Android smartphone with Bluetooth, plus their software installed on the smartphone. 

Scanning occurs with a 5mW class 3R green laser at 520nm wavelength. If that doesn’t register with you, we can say the company claims that up to 16M polygons can be collected on a single scan. That is more than sufficient to capture significant detail, providing the device’s sensors are appropriately accurate. 

On that specification, the Eora 3D Scanner spec sheet says it can capture details as small as 0.250mm with an accuracy of less than 0.200mm. All this occurs within the 1m range of the device.  In other words, you must hold the scanner within 1m of the subject, so the captures will tend to be smaller objects and not larger items like, say an automobile or a building. For that you’ll have to carefully move this scanner around the object, always staying within the scan range.  

Eora 3D suggests the capture time and subsequent processing takes approximately five minutes, which is reasonable. However, it’s not fast enough to provide quick feedback during a scan job. You’ll have to wait the five minutes to review the scan you just obtained to ensure it’s sufficiently good before leaving the subject. 

This 3D scanner attachment, as we said earlier, is quite attractive. It’s made from carefully CNC’d anodized aluminum, and comes in two colors: Dark Grey and Silver. 

There’s also a Bluetooth-controlled turntable able to handle small subjects of less than 125mm wide by 200mm high. Here you simply place your smartphone + Eora 3D scanner attachment in a stationary position, and let the turntable do the work of exposing the subject to the scanner. 

Now let’s look at the software, which is always of critical importance for scanning. It’s hard to tell without using the app, but evidently it supports a number of key features: 

• Analyze
• Stitch
• Downscale/Upscale
• Mesh
• Clean
• Export (.ply, .obj, .stl)
• Share
• Measure
• Fill
• Smooth
• Normals
• Colors
• Lighting
• Undo/Redo
• Projection

This set of functions is pretty decent, compared to what you sometimes get from other 3D scanner software. Possibly missing: Ability to perform plane cuts to create flat bases on the 3D models; Ability to add a solid base to a 3D model. 

Here you can see a brief video of the software: 

The early bird price is set for a mere USD$199, approximately half the price of competing smartphone attachment scanners. We don’t know yet how many units are available at that price, but they’ll probably go fast when the campaign opens later today. 

[UPDATE] Their Kickstarter page is now live. 

Via Eora 3D