Plugin Scanning Tools

SketchUp 3D Printing
1

Hi - does anyone know of a tool or plugin which will allow me to scan a product like a can of coca cola and then upload this into sketchup?

i honestly don’t know if this technology exists or not?

Thanks in advance

2

Sounds like point cloud technology. I have no experience with this myself, except that I know the term for it.

3

I don’t think there is a plugin, but there are external software and web services (of which some are free to test). You need to have a clearer idea of what you understand as “scan”. Do you have any scanning devices?

There are two main approaches:

  • Use a laser scanner (or LIDAR) which measures the time (and thus distance) light takes until it is reflected back to the scanner and generates a “point cloud”. This is very accurate, but many points (on planar faces) can be omitted to reduce the amount of data.
  • Use a set of photos from different perspectives around the object and photogrammetry, which tries to detect the same patterns/features in different photos and infers the spatial location. This works under the condition that the photos are of good quality and the object’s surface actually shows patterns (not too reflective, no mirror, not moving like leaves in the wind).

Usually scanned models require a significant amount of cleanup and compression, also texturing consists of patches from many images and not a single, nice texture map as you have in manual modelling. Your can of coke would not be like 3 minute a push-pulled circle with a photo texture projected on it.

One of the firstlayman-friendly service was Adobe’s 123 Catch:
https://alternativeto.net/software/123d-catch/
See also DIY Photogrammetry: Open Source Alternatives to 123D Catch - Make:

4

Ocipital’s Structure Scanner does a pretty good job of scanning items and creates a mesh that is not too dense for practical use. We have used it several times to scan heads for modeling and 3D printing.

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5

Cheers Aaron - i actually came across this product last night while randomly google searching. Looks pretty good

6

no probs. thanks

7

So with the Optical Structure Scanner - am i correct in thinking this will then upload into sketchup?

8

The Occipital software can export a file that can be imported into SketchUp.

9

Hi - i’ve been doing a bit more research today on the Structure Scanner & came across a video which said in order to export the file to sketchup, you need a separate app which then takes 2 days for the 3D model to be created & if i understood correct, each file costs $$$

Do you know if this is correct?

10

No… That is a service that they offer which will take the scan and generate a SketchUp model for architectural use. If all you are looking for is a mesh from a scan, you can export a file (I think it is DAE or OBJ) the Occipital software.

1 Like
11

Cheers Aaron - i think i will need to make the purchase and then see how it goes