Next Engine

[grunt58]

I know this has been discussed before but the search tool is down.

How is the Next Engine 3D scanner?

https://www.nextengine.com/indexSecure.htm

In my field if the customer doesn't have model of the part we usually have to draw something to represent it. Now sometimes this is easy and sometime its a car dashboard or car bumper.

Can this scanner do a dashboard/bumper with multiple scans?
Accuracy is not that criticle as it's far more accurate than me with a tape measure and calipers trying to draw a dashboard...

If anyone has any comments, experience with large parts or links etc. i'd like to hear from you.


Thanks for your help.

Grant
Applications Engineer
SW2007 SP 3.0
IBM InteliStation Pro M
P4 3.4 GHz, 2GB RAM
XP Pro SP2.0
NIVIDA Quadro FX 3000

 

[dgowans]

Grant,

I don't have any experience with the NextEngine scanner, but if you need to develop scans of large parts I'd probably look at other scanners. Based on what I've read about the NextEngine device I would tend to think you'd have a lot of difficulty generating good scans of parts like dashboards or bumpers, simply due to the fact that it's a desktop device.

The Z Corp handheld scanner, while significantly more expensive, would do what you want. I've seen a demo of the Z Corp product and was very impressed.

 

[JMirisola]

Grant,
You can scan large parts with the NextEngine Scanner. I know that, as a demo, they did a wall. It would take a bit but it is doable. If it's a shiny surface, you'll need to paint it or, and I got this directly from NextEngine, spray the shiny surface down with desinex or another powder based foot spray.
Bear in mind, too, that it isn't just a matter of scanning it in and, voila, you have your part. There are other steps.
Matt Lombard did a great review on it. Check out his blog at

http://www.dezignstuff.com/blog.

I, too, started reviewing it but didn't get a chance to finish it.

Jeff Mirisola, CSWP
SW '07 SP2.0, Dell M90, Intel 2 Duo Core, 2GB RAM, nVidia 2500M

http://designsmarter.typepad.com/jeffs_blog

 

[rtrnka]

It's a toy. You will need to look a little higher for something worthwhile. Like Jeff mentioned, certain surfaces either need to be dusted or colored on to be picked up. We tried to use one for bringing in customer products..we spent so much time patching, repairing, and orientating so it could be used easily; wasn't worth the affordable cost. Too bad, I had high expectations.

 

[Razberryjones]

I agree, it's a toy that creates alot of tedious work in the surfacing arena. It is a step in the right direction and hopefully the affordable units will move toward higher resolutions. I saw a demo when it first came out and it was laughable. If you have 90 hours a week to tweek minute surface holes and glitches on a low res point cloud it's great.

 

[grunt58]

No I don't have 90 hours a week to devote to that. However detail is not to much of a concern as I mentioned before. Next Engine's claimed .015 accuracy in wide mode is fine for what we'd need it for.

My concern is "sewing" the multiple scans back into one useable model.

I think i'm going to have our var come out and do a dashboard and see how it goes. I'll post my findings.

Grant
Applications Engineer
SW2007 SP 3.0
IBM InteliStation Pro M
P4 3.4 GHz, 2GB RAM
XP Pro SP2.0
NIVIDA Quadro FX 3000

 

[JMirisola]

What NextEngine has done is team up with RapidWorks. You scan your object then assemble it in their ScanStudio software. Once you've got it assembled, you bring it into RapidWorks to, essentially, finish it off. At that point you can bring it into SolidWorks to use. This is kind of watered down, going off of my memory. As I said, I never was able to complete my review.

Jeff Mirisola, CSWP

http://designsmarter.typepad.com/jeffs_blog

 

[macduff]

grunt58,
These are the folks you need to talk to:

http://www.reversemodeling.com/

Ask for Ray Reveles

Ray did horizontal wingtip off a B757 aircraft for me and did a killer job scanning the parabolic surface data and brought it into SW for me. They gave me a great price too for what was tasked. I had to ship them the part, and it was returned undamaged.

Hope this helps,

Tell Ray that Colin sent you.


Macduff
Colin Fitzpatrick
Mechanical Design Engineer
Solidworks 2007 SP 4.0
Dell 390 XP Pro SP 2
Intel 2 Duo Core, 2GB RAM
nVida Quadro FX 3450 512 MB