For more information about the Einscan-SP scanner and software, visit www.einscan.com.
To begin, checkout the scanning equipment from an Innovation Lab Technician or ask at the library's circulation desk. This will consist of the scanner and the scanning box with necessary accessories. This scanner is meant for medium sized items (roughly 12" cubed) down to small items (20mm cubed) that can be placed on the turntables. Scanner will be used with Scanning Workstation in Room 112 within the Innovation Lab.
After this:
After Calibration is complete, the EXScan program will move forward to the Scan operation window. You can choose to "Open Work" to continue on a previous scanning project or "New Work" to start a new scanning project.
Most often we will choose "New Work". A "New" dialogue box will prompt you for a name for the project. Enter in a name and then click "New". After this, we have to define the type of scan we wish to perform. This is either a "Texture Scan" or "Non-texture Scan". Texture scan will scan the surface geometry as well as the color information of the object. Non-texture scan will just scan the surface geometry of the object. Most often we choose "Non-texture Scan". Then click "Apply".
To Scan:
Place your object on the turntable of the scanner.
In the program, look to the top left camera view and use slider button underneath to adjust brightness. Adjust so that there is almost 30% to 50% red "coverage" on your model.
Use the "Scan Setting" tab below this camera view to toggle on "HDR" and/or "With Turntable". HDR will enhance the scanner's ability to capture hard to scan surfaces (black, shiny, transparent) when performing a texture (color) scan. "With Turntable" will either set the scan to capture one view (unchecked) or multiple views (checked) with the ability to capture 8 to 180 views per 360° scan. Default "Turntable Steps" would be between 10 and 20.
After choosing your Scan Settings, click on the "Scan" icon at the top of the right toolbar. It looks like a Play button. While scanner is operating do not move the table as this will interfere with the scanner's calibration. After each scan you will have the ability to move the scan data around to edit areas that need it. We will go over edit abilities in the next section. After applying edit, which means you accept the scan results, you can scan your object further to gather missing surface geometry from other angles. Turn your object so that missing surfaces will be seen by the scanner's camera. If using "With Turntable" give turntable a back and forth wiggle to see if the object is stable with its new orientation. If it is not, use other means to stabilize it before scanning. This reduces the chances of the object changing position during turntable movement.
From the example object, we can see the additional scan has filled in surface geometry from the underside of the head and neck.
If needing additional scans, click the "Scan" icon. From the example below, we can see that after clicking "Apply Edit" the program aligns the scans together to form a more complete object.
After each scan, the scanned data appears as a data cloud of points representing the surface geometry. Use the mouse buttons to orbit, pan, and zoom around the scanned data. When finding scanned data that is not part of the geometry of your object, you can select those points by holding SHIFT + Left mouse button to surround the area. Then you can perform a deselect, revert, delete, or apply edits to finish editing.
To obtain a file of your model ready for printing or other 3D related uses we need to prepare the model first. To do this, start with clicking the "Mesh Model" icon at the bottom of the right toolbars.
The program will ask whether you want a "Watertight Model" or "Unwatertight Model". Since most of our scans tend to be printed, it is a good choice to click on "Watertight Model" as this will close any gaps that the model might have.
The program will then ask about the level of detail you would like for the surface geometry. This is up to the user and their type of object but if the object has some areas of detail that you want to keep, then High or Medium will be good options. If the object has subtle details without sharp edges/creases then Medium or Low will be good options. This step makes sure your model retains the amount of detail necessary for whatever application you will be using it for.
After choosing the level of detail, click the "Save Your Scan" icon to save in multiple formats. For a majority of applicable uses in the Innovation Lab, choose the .stl or .obj file types. If you have saved a Texture scan (color) you must choose .obj to have the color information saved as well.
You will be prompted to choose a destination for saving your file. Give the file a name and take note of the location of where you save it. Click "Save" and then on the next "Zoom" window click "Apply". You do not need to adjust the scale of the object since many other programs can adjust the size of your model.
