Hi All
Has anyone bought one of these? Sol 3D Scanner
THE SCANNABLE DIMENSIONS?
Near mode scanning size is a cylinder 100 mm in diameter and 100 mm tall ( 3.9 inches in diameter, 3.9 inches tall )
Far mode scanning size is a cylinder 170 mm in diameter and 170 mm tall ( 6.69 inches in diameter, 6.69 inches tall )
Max scannable weight on turntable is 2kg ( 4.4 lbs or 70.5 ounces )
Doug
Yes, I have had the SOL 3D for three years. Huge disappointment. Poor quality. Enormous scan times due to multiple scans. The inept software actually wastes your time. You will grow old waiting, and be disappointed with the result.
The software is utterly terrible. Three years ago, I wrote a long list of bug fixes to the company, adding details in many follow up messages. But after three years, the software never got any meaningful upgrades. (The did change the crazy loud notification sounds. Who wants a foghorn or battleship siren in an office? Dumb.)
Since I bought mine three years ago, they made a new PRO version scanner that supposedly has better specs, but at well over double the price. The crummy first version I bought is still over $700!)
A major flaw is the baby sitting needed. Rather than ask your preferences at the start of a scan, the software asks you additional questions every so often, for hours. The scanning is so slow, you cannot just sit there. You have coming back to answer another dumb question, on and on, all day. You canāt just let it run all night, because at 3AM, it will ask you if you want to scan another angle. NO! Do I want to save it? YES! And the file format. I could have specified all this hours ago at the start!
The most important feature that MUST be implemented is to save-as-you-go. Nothing is more blood-boiling than to have the damn thing seize up and die after four hours, but the software doesnāt save at any intermediate stage. If something dies, you lose it all. Then you are SOL, meaning āshit out of luckā. I assume thatās where the name comes from.
Letās say you want to scan the same object four times for marginally better quality. You would think it would save periodically between scans, but NO! If it dies on the fourth scan, too bad, all your time was wasted.
There are tons of other frustrating software problems. Do you want an STL, mesh only, without the colorful surface scan? Tough luck, the software will waste time making one. Do you want to scan only the front? Tough luck, the lengthy scan time will double to scan the unnecessary reverse side. (Then you have to waste more time deleting that extra geometry.) And of course, after hours the software asks if you want to save your work. Of course! Are these people that daft?
A complete software re-write would ask everything on a single dialog box: Texture or no? How many scans? Save between scans? 360 or 180 degree scan? What export format and file name? Then, it could forecast when you must return to turn the model. And when itās done, save everything automatically. As if it were professionally written software.
Part of the problem is, there no preferences. Instead, it asks me the same questions over and over. One missing preference is the file format I prefer. Another missing preference would be to continue beeping until I notice, because I have better things to do than babysit the scanner. Another sorely needed preference is to scan geometry without the muddy surface textures (and the time they waste.) Another needed preference is to always display in mesh mode. How else can you tell how good the scan is? Another preference would be to stop telling me that STLs donāt have textures. I know that, because the software tells me every damn time, waiting for yet another unneeded user input. Itās like they want to make a long time-consuming process even more tedious. And duh, once I tell the software I donāt need an additional scan, it is completely unnecessary to ask me the same exact question again ten minutes later.
Also, be aware that the resulting meshes are pretty low quality. Additional scans will add polygons, but the scan isnāt much better. Often, adding additional scans only wastes time, creating a muddy mesh with a million unnecessary vertices.
How bad is the quality? The demo scan is of a small rubber toy. Thatās right, almost no geometry, one color, barely any surface texture. Yes, I wasted $700 that is only good for scanning a low-resolution toy.
Note: I am resurrecting this old thread because it was the number one hit on Google, and this same scanner is still actively sold.
I use Scaniverse on my iphone and ipad. So far so good and free is better than $700
3d scanner sounds neat in concept but i can only imagine how good they would come out. although my dentist had a handheld 3d scanner for my teeth so they can make a crown so i guess anythings possible to be good.
Free is good, but Scaniverse is not comparable to the SOL scanner. Appleās lidar is pretty low resolution, and only good for large objects, tabletop or larger. The SOL 3D canāt scan anything larger than a 7 inch cylinder. Two completely different problems.
I have also purchased similar scanning products, but from the Revopoint brand. I feel that the characteristics of the scanners are quite similar. In my opinion, the POP 3 that I bought offers good value for money.
