Don't Buy a 3D Scanner! Use Photogrammetry Instead! 

Hey now, cardboard is still a wonderful way to make mock ups! Thank you 😁

I still contend a hobbiest 3D scanner won't do you any better. If you have critical dimensions, you'll have to measure them by hand whether you use photogrammetry or a hobby 3D scanner. Scanners/probes capable of real reverse engineering (or quality control as they're often used for in industry) cost tens of thousands for small parts, or for doing something the size of a car maybe hundreds of thousands. Whereas a pair of calipers and some photos hardly costs you anything.

True, nowadays I see it in industry for Quality Control often (the tech didn't seem to be good enough for this even 10 years ago). Like you said though, completely inaccessibly expensive for "hobby" prices 😅. I'd love to see the technology trickle down, but right now I just don't have much faith in the hobby scanners that so many youtubers are being paid to sell nowadays, not when photogrammetry exists for free and seems to do as good a job.

I haven't found anything that runs on a phone that is very usable yet (tried 3 or 4 apps), but I also don't have a lidar phone that likely makes a big difference. I don't think phones have the processing power to do real time 3D scanning, so they take too many shortcuts to make good scans. I do think having a cuda card is a huge improvement on speed like you said, and I think that's why zephyr is so much faster for me than meshroom - zephyr is graphics accelerated with cuda. However I still made it work on meshroom, there was just more waiting around. However the software I recommended really was as easy as I made it seem. 50 seconds to 2 minutes of handheld video, 150-400 photos, cranked up the presets and almost zero cleanup other than deleting unwanted points. Zephyr is even easier than meshroom, but it is paid which is why I emphasized meshroom so much (free). Granted I'm overlooking the fact that it didn't capture the reflective windows, there were a couple holes, and the body was bumpy in places, but it didn't make a difference for what I was doing. In fact the front suspension/undercarriage where I needed the most accurate scan came out nearly flawless. For some use cases I'm sure it'd struggle, but that's the same with 3D scanners. The software really has come a long way.

@@BuildSomethingAuto you are missing my point: argue that again for a mac user or a linux user without a nvidia card.

​@tcurdt Your point is "woe is me". Nobody cares. You picked an operating system, deal with the consequences.

That's not my point. But given that tone - I could not care less 🤷‍♂

@@tcurdt "At least when you are a non-windows person" "Woe is me, I picked a non-windows operating system and can't use what you show in this video." That is exactly your point.

Thanks for the comment. It might be slower than a good 3D scanner, but its faster than a bad 3D scanner 😅. Im not sure you could pay hobbiest level prices and do as well as photogrammetry, but cost is relative and the technology gets better every day. For what its worth I didnt require very much cleanup at all for what I was doing here. However for this use case things didnt need to be perfect.

When you enter the realm of people that actually use 3d scanners, you'll find it's mostly manufacturers trying to avoid bottlenecking their operations, and consumers that think if they use industrial tools they'll get industrial results. Which one of those groups of people do you think automotive RU-vidrs are more likely to be in?

This channel doesnt make any money, I cant go spending $1k buying a scanner for a video 😅. Some channels that I know have videos on them you could watch for comparison are superfast matt, making for motorsport, clough42, etc. Find a video where they do a whole car rather than just a small part for apples to apples, and make sure you note how much it cost them (well most of them get the scanner for free, i mean how much itd cost you to buy the one they use).

@@BuildSomethingAuto totally understandable that you cant afford one. neither can I but then perhaps reserve judgement that its better..as you dont know from personal experience.

@@adamfilipowicz9260 Photogrammetry is definitely better. For him in this use case. Heck i scan cars, houses and land with a drone using photogrammetry. Its 100% the best choice for my use case every day of the week.