The camera on your phone isn’t just a photography device, it’s a memory-maker. When it isn’t capturing memories of where you went, who you met, and how you looked, your camera captures memories of things you want to preserve as inspiration, reference material, etc. A pretty ornament, a nice painting, a great-looking car, some sculptures, textures, patterns, etc. What if, however, instead of taking 2D photos, you could take a 3D scan of an object? Imagine being able to capture more than just an image – imagine having a 3D model instead, with color information that you can then use as reference material or for source material that can be directly edited, printed, and prototyped. Sounds pretty remarkable, doesn’t it? That’s what the REVOPOINT POP 3 promises, letting you capture your world and turn objects, environments, and people into highly realistic 3D models.
Designers: Jingshuai Ding, Luca Strauss & Xuemei Tian
The affordable handheld 3D scanner uses a binocular dual camera infrared system to stereoscopically capture the world around you in vivid detail as well as in color. Working at 18fps with a single-frame precision of 0.05mm, the POP 3 is perfect for designers, engineers, manufacturers, historians, animators, game developers, and even filmmakers looking to create 3D or metaverse-ready experiences. The POP 3’s lightweight, handheld design makes scanning objects and characters incredibly easy, offering a much more comprehensive way to capture objects in the world around you… in three dimensions!
Starting at a price of $659, as opposed to most studio-grade scanners that can go up to a whopping $20,000, the POP 3 is an affordable 3D scanner with a UX that’s quite literally as easy as waving a wand. The T-shaped device features two IR cameras that capture the depth information and an RGB camera for color data. It boasts a working distance between 150mm to 400mm (roughly 6 to 16 inches), working with normal surfaces as well as with enhanced marker tracking for better precision.
Built into the device lies REVOPOINT’s cutting-edge 3D scanning system, which uses a combination of sensors, illuminators, and chipsets to build stunningly accurate 3D replicas of real-world objects. A depth camera captures depth information, aided by an IR light that improves scanning output. An RGB camera captures surface colors and material information, using white LED to improve accuracy and quality, giving you a full color model at the end of your scan. An integrated 9-axis IMU (inertial measurement unit) constantly monitors the scanner’s movement for enhanced point cloud capture, ensuring that your scans are seamless with flawless frame stitching. The POP 3 scans at up to FPS, with each frame having an accuracy of up to 0.1mm, giving your scans a high amount of detail.
The POP 3 offers a minimum scan volume of 20mm x 20mm x 20mm, stitching multiple tiny detail-rich frames together to give you your final result. The IR array captures a 125 × 225mm area in a single frame, while the scanner’s handheld design makes it easy to move around objects to scan them, whether it’s for prototyping, industrial design, reverse engineering, 3D game design, cultural heritage restoration, medical rehabilitation, or scanning furniture and other interior decor.
Scanning progress and data are transmitted over Wi-Fi 6 (for high-speed low-latency feedback) to the Revo Scan 5.0 software available on Windows and Mac devices, as well as an app on Android and iOS devices. A Type-C connector makes scanning incredibly easy, letting you capture scans on your smartphone too, directly from the POP 3 device. You can save your scanned data in STL, PLY, and OBJ, for compatibility with most mainstream 3D modeling and slicing software like Solidworks, Blender, ZBrush, Rhink 3D, Unity, Cinema 4D, Adobe Substance Painter, KeyShot, and many more.
Available starting at just $659, the POP 3 comes with a simple 3-button interface to start/stop scanning as well as adjust exposure. The scanner works best under regular light conditions (Revopoint recommends not using it in harsh daylight), and you can even buy a special scanning spray for special objects with reflective, translucent, or transparent surfaces.
