Photogrammetry vs. "Real" 3D Scanner 

I used photo for a LOT of years in Aerospace to measure large tools and we never used it for 3D mapping. We always used a lot of tie points (fixed points in space larger than the object under inspection that the camera could see from multiple angles. This helps to stitch the photos) We also used scale bars with accurately located targets of a highly accurate distance in multiple locations. You can use reference points on the scale bars as tie points. The bars need to be in location for the whole photo session in all locations with known good distances. LOL I almost cried for you when you said it takes roughly 15 min to process the photos. When we first started using Photo, we might have had 200 points to map and used 3 scale bars in X, Y, Z orientation so the software could establish scale in 3D. Add to that a hundred or so tie in points and we could measure 3 stories tall, 300 feet long and 30 feet wide in space to 0.015" (fifteen one THOUSANDTHS of an inch. Or less than half a MM. Remember this is just points in space, not 3D mapping. We would load the pictures into the computer and start the computing at roughly Noon. THE NEXT MORNING when we came into work the computing MIGHT have been finished! LOL! Leica came out a few times to try to sell us a scanner setup like what you show but on an industrial size and portable . It never worked for us. It was not as accurate as we needed and we did not need to have a detailed 3D map of the surface so we never did any of that. We DID use Laser Trackers to do a lot of work and with multiple stations we could map the points in the tool referenced above to plus or minus 0.007" or less than half the error of photo and we could do it in an 8 hour shift or less start to finish. The laser trackers were easy to use but were not as accurate as Theodolites. Theodolites could measure again to less than half the error of the laser tracker but it took a skilled 3 to 4 man team to do the same job as above. It is all about the job that needs to be done as to what tool to use. We would map the critical points of joining the wings on an aircraft with Theodolites within the same 7 thou and that is a 3D object 250+ feet wide, 40 feet deep and roughly 4 to 6 feet thick in about 5 hours but again, we were not mapping the contour. For mapping contour we would use Laser trackers set to measure a point every time the reflector moved a programmed distance, say every one tenth of an inch. We would sweep the reflector over the surface in a grid pattern then take that resulting hundreds of thousands of points and mesh them into a CAD model of what the part SHOULD be in a perfect world. Uh LOL I guess most of this really does not apply! It is your fault LOL, measurements were my life for over 36 years and I guess I tend to get excited when I see tech being used that I used for so long :D Now that I am retired for 3 years, I miss it and talking about it!!!!!! If you made it this far.. GOD BLESS YOU! now CARRY on :P

Baby powder works well if you don't want to ruin your object with paint or anything. Apply on it prior to taking picture or scanning. It does increase the quality on shiny or darkish mat texture.

Tom, I love your channel and thanks for introducing some people to photogrammetry. Those with access to an SLR or at least a tripod with their phone are going to fair a lot better. Keep that Aperature up in the F11 range: the tripod will allow that shutter to be as slow as necessary. Most phones can be set to voice-operation, "cheese, cheese, cheese..." as the tripod gets moved around or the turntable spun with the object. A light dusting of powder or a polarizer or both helps with the glares. Spray chalk is also great for items that are ok to rinse with water. Those reading: please join some of the photogrammetry groups online and get ready for a vertical but satisfying learning curve!

You know.... I woke up this morning not having a clue about this technology and now after your video randomly popping into my suggestions, I really am excited to try this out. Great subject matter!

Great comparison, i had wondered about the photogrammetry. I have an Einscan SP and it's so amazing to use for copying things that are no longer manufactured, like brackets or clips. Thanks for sharing and as always Keep Building👍

Einscan is based on open source technology. You can actually build your own from scratch. Actually, ideal for a Maker's project. The 'parent' project was called DAVID Laser Scaner, and it had two generations - first one used line laser (you had to buy the laser diode at prohibitively large cost of $5), and used motorized setup and video footage to generate vertex cloud, and second generation included a projector shining stripes onto the object with set of photographs - it increased the cost, but removed the need for perfect mechanical setup for moving laser, or at least prism or mirror. Einscan's dual camera setup is improvement over the original idea, btw which sprung around the time Microsoft's Kinect SDK became available. LED projectors can be had now for less than $15 (they have wild resolution of 320x240, but since all it does is display bars, it should be fine), so it's not that expensive. Sadly DAVID's site was hit with users' data leak at some point, so it had some dark side to it. Edit: I believe it might have been some time since I looked it up. It had became paid, closed software. What a shame :(

I love the video Thomas, thank you so much for sharing. I have a quick question. Are there any 3d scanners that can see through hair, fur, or clothing? I know the airports use mm-Wave technology to see through garments, and thermal doesn't really work either. Any ideas?

The iPhone X and Xs have forward facing 3d scanners. There's some software apps that use the scanner to create a 3D model. Could you do a review of this please?

Would dulling spray work with a highly reflective surface? I have painted figures that have some metallic paint on it that are reflective. I've used photogeometry and do have some issues with the reflective surface. I have a Matter and Form V2 coming this Saturday but I fear I will have the same issue. I'm thinking of trying a dulling spray to reduce reflective properties while preserving the color (VS the chalk alternative).

There is sophisticated all-in-one package photogrammetry 3D scan solutions out there as well. Although you don't need it and as you said, you can do it on the go, you always get better results with a calibrated well-known setup. By the way, the technique Einscan is using is called "stuctured-light scanning". I think if you compared the two techniques of two machines in the same price range you wouldn't notice much of a difference accuracy-wise.

Add a polarizing filter to the camera. It will remove most reflections, except for the chrome skull.

What about using a manual turntable or automatic turntable with a cellphone? Would this be a good 3rd option for testing?

It's really sweet of you to thank patreons who support other creators. It's gonna be more important now.

Great video! I didn't hear anything about using a cell phone ToF sensor (time of flight). My Samsung note 10 plus allows me take 3D models via an app. Do u know of any other apps that take advantage of the time of flight sensor to take high quality 3d scans on an android phone?

Are there any suggested software for the iPhone because I didn’t see any listed

I have an Xperia XZ Premium and it comes with an app to do scanning. I was wondering if there is a better app for it I could use. Low cost or free is preferred. It runs Android 9 and has laser autofocus. It has a decent 19 MP camera and a 13 MP for selfies which I have already scanned my face in 3D with.

Hola, que tal son estás dos herramientas para trabajar con objetos muy pequeños?

Has someone tried the Occipital Structure Sensor Mark II?? How accurate is it? I'm planning to get one

You are practically one of the few RU-vids I can listen to and believe.

I recommend dry shampoo spray for matting the objects (washes off with water)

Are there any 3d scanners out there that use sonar? Not depending on light reflection seems pretty useful. How viable is sonar, would it be able to give accurate results?

If you were to project lines with photogrammetry I imagine that would improve the results (on the white model for instance).

Hello hi there, greetings could you tell me the accuracy ration difference compare photogrammetry to 3d scanner! thank you

Hi, is there anyone thinking to create a device more like a laser beam sender or just a light beam sender for a smartphone? using a smartphones camera and app?

Hello Thomas.Why not use VisualSFM for photogrammetry and MeshLab for proccess the 3d meshes? I m doin my thesis at photogrammetry and made a scanner also, very instersting field.

did you try scanners such as 3dsystems sense3d? as far as I know is like photogrammetry and kinect like technology, with photos and IR blasting instead of structured light. most people use it because it does not need the triprod, almost as Artec scanner.

I want to scan for study an ancient petroglyph on a large rock, out in the field. Obviiously phone photogrammetry program would be best. Has anyone used photogrammetry in this way? Any tips? Thanks

Would like to see your opinion on the note 10+ with the time of flight sensor. I think I am doing something wrong because the model is just one bit blob for me

how about a circular polarizing filter to cut down on the metallic reflections ?

If I have a very very good dslr camera, is it always better to use that instead of a 3d scanner?

thanks nerdy pewdiepie, you helped me a lot bro.

i brought an einscan a few months back. It works great and turns out 100% usable scans and models. I try the laser scanners and photo ones. They simply didnt work for me. So i say if you needs a working scanner and have the money the Einscan SE is the way to go. Also if you want to scan bigger thing its pretty easy to use a tripod and simply rotate the item for each scan.

I just have to say that I am a technician at Digi-Key and I spotted that ruler in 0.3 seconds! I was super happy to see that in your video!

Is it possible to do something similar to the einscan with a kinect 2?

Hey guys, does anyone knows what is the name of the opensource phone Software ?(03:06)

I know this is an older video, but I wanted to point out that there are now cellphone apps for photogrammetry that work about as well as shown here, but they generate the model automatically on the cellphone. It's pretty fast, but the detail levels haven't improved much.

Wow this was very informative, thanks! I haven’t read all the comments but one limitation I see with einscan is the size of the object. I’d like to scan some r/c airplane models that are up two - three meters in length, I think einscan would have an issue??

Hi Tom, good video but i believe the einscan is also "just" a souped-up camera. They can measure the distances thanks to the projected lines and interpolate thanks to photogrammetry too, but this is not how "real" 3d scanners work. Real 3D scanners use Lasers to measure distances and give you a live preview of the appearing mesh and let you know where you have to go over again (yes you have the scanner hand-held and go around the subject to be scanned). Check out the Artec Eva and Artec Spider for "real" 3D scanners

Great discussion, have tried the hand scanners and a lot of photogrammetry, including drones. I guess I would have to assume that my mobile phone and my drone would be my outdoor choices and a hand-held scanner or other would be my inside choice. also if I had a model that I really wanted scanned nicely I guess I would have to make that choice whether a $1,500 us scanner was worth the scan

Knowing your love for opensource, I'm supprised you didn't include opensource scanner like the cyclop, freelss or my sardauscan (it is hard to calibrate, but it only cost 30$ is much faster than 30min with decent machine and can be used to automate photogametry process)

what is the app on the phone called?

How much is the ravinpoint scanner ? They aren't saying which is a warning that's it is very expensive.

First off, amazing video, loved the information in it. You should do a video showing different techniques to capture hard to capture objects. You mentioned some that wouldn't hurt the integrity of the original model (talcum powder for example), and that would be interesting to see. One suggestion, that I don't think would affect your rankings or anything, but is important to take into account, is you should have a solid, properly colored background. I see this all the time in people showing off paint jobs on miniatures, or even just attempting to sell them. If you take the pictures with any organic background, it can affect things like lighting, or just in general affect the image. A solid neutral color background could possibly affect the lighting properties, and allow for a "better" scan. Worth an attempt, or even a "how to" or "do/don't" video for scanning.

Funny thing is, showing a logo on a box like that Shining 3d logo on a youtube video also applies to article 13 right?

is there a technique to 3d scan something, detail is not important, but proper volume dimensions, so you could import into Fusion 360 and design around it. Only use it as a template, but proper dimensions is important?

Thanks for the great info! If you have Photoshop and probably other photo manipulation software you can also adjust the individual pics removing shadows etc then run it through meshroom hope that helps someone :)

Ive been doing nothing but taking 10000s of photo's for models! LOVE THE VID!

It is indeed sad that EU approved article 13 :( My country is affected too. Very nice comparison, Thomas! I love how you make your videos! I used in the past the photogrammetry to scan some household stuff. It is good enough to get a rough model of a thing, but you always have to correct the scan in meshmixer or other software. Keep up the good work! :) Cheers!

Meshroom has its own limitations, and you can help deal with smoother surfaces with more photos with a higher res camera.

I tried photogrammetry and did not have much luck and took huge processing time, but using the Xbox 360 Kinect-1 and skanect, it worked shockingly well. Have you tried Skanect? Trial version was a good, enough for me to buy it (130$ I think).

Is that all it takes, 15 photos on an iPhone to get a 3D image that will print on a 3D printer? Would it be better if you used a digital camera? I am mostly interested in objects that would be too labour intensive to draw up in cad....I'm still learning Fusion 360. What happens when you've taken 15 photos....what is the next step and in what program?

cool, thanks for sharing! is there any way to buy this e3d merch?

Excellent video. Thank you for the information.

Hey, I know this is really of topic, I was wondering which material was stronger, Taulman PCTPE or Polymide COPA, you tested both before, sadly for me with different test sets. I am especially interested in their impact strength. Thanks already!

Why would anyone give this a thumbs down? I think that this video was very objective and told both sides of the story! What else do you want? He doesn't waste a lot of time but gets right to the point.

Helpful video 👍

What about using a turntable with a fixed camera for photogrammetry? would that increase resolution?

just spent two whole days trying to get Meshroom to work with little luck. Gosh is it complicated.

I wander if coating the object with grey plastidip would help with scanning? I say plastidip because you can just peel it off when you're done scanning.

For me is photogrammetry all the way, its incredibly versatile cheap and has pretty good precision if you know what you are doing, you can scan from insects to mountains!

Would like to see a review on the HE3D Open Source Ciclop DIY 3D Systems Scanner Kit, something I can afford:-)

Very balanced and VERY thorough, quite impressive. Keep up the great work!

You should take the photos with an actual dslr to get the metadata of the pictures. You can also use photogrammetry with aeral photos like drone footage, which is an advantage. Also the einscan se takes more than 15 min for full color meshes. We have one at my university in trier which i coul use in the past. Still thx thomas for the great vid!

Thomas, thank you for that explanation video, and could you please leave a link to mobile scan-app ?

Woah I did not at all consider using a drone to fly around a building for photogrammetry. That is awesome!

I wonder if a phone will ever come out with built in hardware for scanning. Possibly by replacing the camera LED with laser projector and using that to project grid lines during scanning, along with the software to automate the end to end process of building the model.

hi tom ive not tryed anythink like this for a good few years but i did have amazing results in past with davidscanner back then it just used a webcam logitech 920 pro if i remember right and some paper patterns you printed out and put in a corner, it realy did work well i used it at time to scan a model car for a project, might be worth a look how its moved on

what was the software you used for your android device. I want to scan an engine.

autodesk recap is free for non commercial use and offloads the processing to a cloud

great vid brother!

It would be cool to see how well a self build Thingiverse 3D Scanner with you're Smartphone competes against such Scanners like the "Einscan".

Hello, excellent video comparing both approaches, can you tell me if you can measure the object accurately (Even with curved edges) with the digital 3d model?

so Einscan here is not a laser scanner but a stereocamera boosting object resolution by projecting reference patterns? that should be applicable into the smartphone scanning game...

How do you stich on the phone? what apps? softwhere? is there a DIY version of the Einscan type scanner?

What can I use on Mac for Photogrammetry? Meshroom isn't available for Mac. Thanks

Great job Thomas, as ever. I´d like to ask you... which is your opinion about best way (software and hardware) to scan a big volume, maybe, your car or a building? what would you select for that big job?. That is an idea for another future video :-)

Would love to see a comparison between the scanner and one of those "homebrew" xbox kinect.

I found the Einscan SP to be a little soft especially on the textures, I ended up renting an Artec Spider. Granted the einscan isn't really about the textures but it was still frustrating to deal with.

Hi Thomas, what about the Ciclop scanner?

Love the colorgrade of your video with with that slight white milky effect. Really smooth and comfortable to watch. And props for your english. Wizout ze standard görman accent. ^^

This is funny I did my own EinScan vs. photogrammetry comparison. I showed the results in separate videos though, not one real comparison video. I also used a different EinScan model and different photogrammetry software.

Real scanning and phorogrammetry works different. At work we have a 200.000 euro and 500.000 euro machine for scanning , it is a measuring machine, so it need to be precise. The object gets a lot of stickers (and coded stickers)on the object, a lot of adapters can be used to capture it in the photogrammetry, this is to capture the middle point of a hole(and a lot more). The photogrammetry starts, it will not use the pictures for the mesh, it will take pictures of all stickers(coded stickers), and adapters, and the scale bars. Scale bars are for distance measuring(every year these needs to be calibrated 1000 euro). Now you have a pointcloud of only stickers on the object. On the stickers only you can start measuring if you want. The stickers also good for if camera or objects moves, it will not accept the scan. Then the scanning starts, the scanner calibrates itself and the scanning is very precise. scan the object, every scan will see the stickers, looks in the pointcloud for sticker, finds it, places the scan on the stickers, this is very precise, after all scans are taken, you make the mesh, the stickers are scant, and are higher, but the software removes the stickers, so the mesh is smooth. Auto cut out, to the cad model, make RPS, and you have the real measurement in real life and very precise, and you never can print this quality. The camera lenses can be changed 700 mm (capture area)is the big one, and 400 mm is the smaller one, then you get more precise. We work with blue led light. Newer versions go to 1000 MM and laser light, even bigger and faster. You can buy special can of white spray for the objects, it will dissolve after a few ours without cleaning(expensive). Search on RU-vid for " GOM optical" then you see movies, and how to. GOM has a free version of their software, where you could use the mesh repair smoothing software, if it is useful I do not know, you can import stl repair and export, You cannot import a cad model.

What program should you use to clean up photogrammetry outputs? One without a steep learning curve.

Thought about 3d printing ... then thought about scanning and printing something. Einscan SE is like 3.2k at Amazon. Will check back in 5 years!

Great video. Looking forward to seeing you this Saturday.

How about using the true depth camera on iPad Pro or the high end iPhones (maybe other phones too) has anyone tried that.

Funktioniert das scannen des chromeschädels eigentlich mit einer Kinect ?

Photogrammetry is the best, take hundreds or thousands of pictures to capture some monuments, ruins or castles. I'm a funboy for that. Back in a day there was even a developers who worked on the mobile app and the app was creating a 3d point cloud at the moment when you were taking pictures. But I don't know were they got with it, did they finished it or not. I used agisoft photoscan

I've never tried it but you can try using Polarizing Filters for shiny objects.

Been wanting to find out more about this field for awhile, right now we can make objects but not scan objects, same as the printing press came before the camera, I think this industry will bloom in the near future, thanks for the video Tom!

I tried to use my xbox one kinect to 3d scan, couldn't get it to work. First it wasn't compatible with the chipset for my usb. Bought a dedicated usb card and then it wouldn't work because my gpu wasn't up to the task😔

Thomas .. your reviews of the Einscan SE unit convinced me to purchase one .. 4 months later it has already paid for itself through Ebay 3D Printed product sales enabled by this scanner. It does take some time to complete scans of detailed complex parts, but the results are outstanding, and incredibly dimensionally accurate.

2:20 quick idea: spray it with colored plasti dip! you can easily remove it later and it will provide a good rough matte surface to scan

Photo stacking hard to scan objects also works well, but adds an extra set of steps.

Also with photo meny times a lot od the photos you take get dropped from the evaluation so if your computer isnot near the scanned object this can be issue.

any way to get a good 3d scanner under $500??

Yup, great video

Skull + dark room = Success ( whit Einscan ) Try again now with the Light Off ( to see if Einscan can do the skull ) thanks

Gotta say, the ability to take a photo of just about anything and print it is more attractive then the ability to take a fantastic photo of whatever will fit on the platform

You can get very low resolution cheap projectors off the internet. Even some portable ones. Projecting a 'calibration pattern' on a feature and textureless object like the angel should dramatically improve the results, no? After all it is kind of copying the Einscan System.