Matter and Form MFS1V1 3D Scanner

I received my scanner and had a little hiccup with my graphics card (my PC had out of date drivers). Danai in customer service at Matter and Form helped me resolve those issues very promptly! After getting it up and running I was able to immediately scan in some test objects. Awesome! This thing just works! It is amazing at this price point the quality of 3D scans that you get with it. I was considering in all-in-one, other brands, and even put the NextEngine on my wishlist, but I am so glad that I went with this instead. The software is extremely simple to use and very intuitive. I would definitely recommend this to a friend. Pros - Extremely easy to use --> plug and play - Affordable - Fast! For all of my needs it was done scanning in about 2 minutes - High quality scans out of the box - Small form factor -- doesn't take up much desk space at all - Mobile (if you need it to be) - Cool design, nice build quality - Quiet when rotating and scanning Cons - Kind of loud when moving vertically - Some objects require re-scanning at a different angle to capture the entire object (but I can't complain because it's not a 3-axis platform like my other)

First of all, my order for this got lost in transit. So I canceled my Amazon order, and bought this at a local store. I returned it a few days later. I knew going in that 3D scanners in this price range leave something to be desired. I figured maybe it would work for my needs anyway. And if not, maybe my scans could be used at least as a starting point for a model so I wouldn't have to build everything from scratch. It didn't work out at all. 1. This scanner is incapable of capturing detail. I figured multiple passes might overcome the limitations of the hardware. But nope. You already know it can't capture intricate detail; but there's also a limitation on the very simple details it can capture, like straight lines. Let's say, for example, you're scanning a rectangular piece of wood that's been routed with a dovetail or even straight groove on the side. The scanner will not be able to read the inside of the grove very well at all, even though the laser has a straight view of it. The scanner will detect points inside the groove, but the software doesn't know how to interpret the data. 2. The models it creates are very flawed. I'd get random lines in empty spaces, creating spiderweb-like effects, and models would take forever to print because their internal structures are weird. So you can't really use the models it generates as a starting point except maybe to give you a very rough idea of scale and proportion of objects you're trying to reproduce. 3. I also can't fathom why the software doesn't automatically isolate the platform from the object you're scanning and remove it from the final model. Seems like a no-brainer. The platform is always in the same place. Just ignore that region instead of assuming it's part of the object I'm scanning. Maybe they should paint it green and use a chroma key to take it out. I don't know what I could scan with this that would A) come out well and B) be something that I'd want to 3D print. You couldn't scan, for example, gears for electric motors. That would be neat, but with a precision of 1mm, you won't be able to get the teeth. You can't scan tabletop game parts. They're too detailed. They come out looking like melted wax. Maybe some very undetailed chess pieces, but that's about it. So this is really a bust. Maybe the whole thing would be improved if they'd slap on a couple extra lasers and cameras and raise the price to $1k. Maybe they should get some outside developers involved. I don't know. Very disappointing.

The scanner is very cool but customer service with this company is pathetic and even though they list supporting Windows 32 Bit, after trying on several terminals I could not get it to work and was forced to buy a Mac to finish our project on time because it took them 8 days to even offer a quality assurance technician. The device itself works really great on a 64 bit Mac system (havent seen it work with a Windows system yet). Its also quite a bit slower than they say on their site but who cares its better than manually trying to model the object. I dont know if I would buy from this manufacturer again.

Well, it does work. First of all, the thing feels very much like a dime store toy. Now, please, don't let that be overly derogatory in forming your opinion. It is actually very well designed. someone put a great deal of thought into it. But, the plastic housing, and the light weight put me off. It folds up like a little 'Barbie Doll" carrying case that folds out into a dolls dressing room or something. But, in the folded state, it takes up very little room and is very well protected. Performance....It was very difficult to get the driver to load and be recognized. The hunt for the driver was about an hours worth of frustration that really should not be an issue at all. I am working on a Windows 7 and had to up grade to a Windows 8 Lap top just for this machine...it worked fine, so, it may have been a Windows issues...which has not been uncommon. Expect the scans to take quite a while. The M&F instructions and tutorials are full of this advice. Scans take up huge amounts of computer memory. So, the best advice I can give is use a dedicated computer strictly for scanner use. Set your target on the turntable and let it do it's thing...You will need to take several scans of the same object to get a really good scan that can be reliably printed...but, I understand, this is true for most scanners of this caliber. The scanner should come with a little stemmed stage (like a wine glass, only a half inch tall. If you do not have one, print one. It is very hard to separate the bottom of your object from the stage that scans with it...so, a little table or single post stage is what I use to solve that problem.Lighting is critical. You really need some sort of flat but fairly bright lighting scheme to help illuminate your targets. I fount that battery powered "stick-up" lights work great. Build a little light "Tree" that can light up your targets from right and left and above. I think I paid 12 bucks for three of these lights and they made a huge difference in my scans. They do not flicker, and have great flat light spread. You have to (must!) calibrate the scanner before every scan. I don't know why, but, this give better, perfectly scaled scans. Calibration is super easy, but takes a little time. Overall, once you get the darned thing set up and actually working, it is ok. The software you down load to go with it is made for people I call "Cadillac drivers" who want to just push the pedal and go. But, it is rather odd...very few options you can tinker with..so, in a way that's good. But, it is confusing at first and seems again, more like a "Play School" video game than a real craftsmanship tool. Clearly, the M&F people were trying to make a scanner for everyone. It is fine for some people less experienced working with 3-D and computer digital modeling. If they ever get their driver to be more workable with Windows it should be fine (in research, I found that the Mac folks do not seem to have any issue with the driver and also, I understand, Macs works very well with this little scanner! A point to ponder) . Final lines: It's an okay scanner. It's probably a bit over priced (In my opinion), but it is well thought out and does scan objects well if you work with it and give it lots of time to get the job done. I would love to have a better software to use with it and yet, for the price, the software does work. And, it is well protected, so you are not likely to "tweak" it to a point of making it totally screwed up. Put your objects on that little table,and you will be in the 3D scanning world.

I bought this scanner specifically to scan clay models. I had been using 123D Catch and wanted something more precise. This was not the solution I was expecting. Pros - Compact - (Relatively) Inexpensive - Easy to set up Cons - Most objects need to be scanned multiple times in multiple orientations, meaning it won't work on unbaked clay - Loud - Slow - Requires a lot of time and technical know-how to clean up scans before they're usable - Very little documentation on how to tweak the scanner for optimal performance - Scans limited to the size of the turntable Overall I was disappointed with this product. Setup was easy: unfold it, plug it in, install the software, and turn it on. On windows 10, this was relatively painless, though I was disappointed to see that the installation installed vanilla Arduino communication drivers. Calibration worked fine and I jumped right into scanning my clay models. The first scan took a few hours, and I got a half-completed point cloud. After some googling (it's not clear in the instructions) I realized you had to perform multiple scans to get a complete model. This wasn't possible since my model was clay, unbaked, and hence could only stand in one orientation (I prefer unbaked clay so I can make changes). This was disappointing. This is because there are 2 lasers that are at a fixed angle and a camera that is at a fixed angle. If a laser AND the camera can't see part of the model, it's not recorded, and this resulted in only around 70% of my model being scanned. The software outputs quite a few formats, which is nice, but nothing really usable right away. So don't expect to "scan and print." It's going to be, "scan, clean with meshlab, import to blender, spend a couple hours cleaning up, and print." Depending on the complexity of the model, some areas may be completely unscannable and you'll be eyeballing it. That's really the most disappointing part: if I wanted to eyeball it, I wouldn't have bought a scanner. -_- The software was simple to set up, but offered very few advanced options and almost no documentation on how to use the advanced options. Laser / Camera orientation means there's a lot of guesswork in setting up multiple scans, and sometimes it seems impossible to get it to scan certain areas of a model. They recommend using ambient light, but the scan takes so long that the ambient light in the room changes and the scan comes out multi-colored, so unless you're sitting in a room with no windows, don't expect the colors to be correct or consistent. This also can makes it hard to align multiple scans to make a complete model. I can't recommend this product. The only reason it doesn't get 1 star is because it does actually work: it just doesn't work well. It's slow, loud, and unwieldly, and currently 123D catch still does a better job of capturing my models, and it's FREE. Hopefully the continue to improve the product, but I may just end up returning mine for a refund: I can't see myself ever using it again, and for $500, I expected something I could use. This product may be something YOU can use, just be aware of its limitations. It makes a lot more sense to have a fixed model and a mobile camera than the other way around, so I'm not sure what kind of future this concept has.

Had mine since late Feb 2016. Arrived surprisingly fast after ordered. My experience with customer support has been excellent. Online manual and PDF manual you can download have extremely good information especially if you are new to making Point Clouds. Bought this model mainly for form factor in the price range, especially for safe storage between uses. You have to read the manual and work with it to get the best out of this scanner but for its price vs. the ones with higher resolution which cost a lot more it does a fine job and is an excellent learning tool. The Mac version of the software loaded and ran on El Capitan without any serious problems. Even though the critical "Align" function is stated still as Beta it seems to work quite well if you feed it a pair of decent scans. As a total newbie to point clouds it took me a while to start getting the best it can deliver but am surprised at what it can do for the price. Hardware to do better seems to start in the $3,000 price range. I am mainly interested in scans of organic forms for use in DAZ3d via OBJ files though I also have a 3d printer. Hexagon 2.5 is quite happy with the OBJ files, but finds they have a huge number of vertexes! And of course DAZ3d imports the OBJ with only the usual "what size is it" bit of figuring out. My first decent Froggie scan imported initially larger than a Genesis 3 Female! The software outputs a fairly long list of file formats and the Meshing Software included seems to work well I am now using the same laptop I use for 3d printing to do the scan capture as both take a fairly long time to work through a decent job. Just like a high quality 3d render, the hardware has to work on it for a while and so far this scanner has been quite happy to chug along problem free for however long one of its maximum resolution scans takes. Comes with a nice little green Froggie to practice on so you have a "standard" target well known to the company if you need to ask for help.

I received this for Christmas. I had requested a 3d scanner as I am hoping it will save some time in the 3d modeling I am doing. I create my own 3d models and print them so I am familiar with the lack of plug and play options in the 3d world. I expected to need to spend time learning this new technology and working with the scanner. However, it will not scan ANYTHING, regardless of the lighting source. The customer support is 'check back mid-January' which is not acceptable for such an expensive item. After reviewing forum posts, it appears that the solution is to scan the item 20 to 40 times at 12 minutes a scan so 4 to 8 hours of scanning! I can model most items in less time than that. If you are new to this whole world, this ISN'T the scanner for you. If you are experienced in 3d modeling, scanning, printing, etc. this still isn't the scanner for you. I can scan an item 3 times with my phone in about 15 minutes so instead of buying an expensive scanner, I am going to print a rotating stand for my phone and use the free app.

I don't know how well this scanner would have worked under normal conditions but mine was defective. What's worse, it had been used already. The package had been opened and repacked. The seal on the original scanner box had been cut then taped back. Everything inside the box had been opened and the scanner had finger prints and smudges all over it. All the smaller individual items inside the box were placed back inside their plastic bags but the plastic 3D test frog figure was in a bag that was originally totally sealed and couldn't be easily rewrapped so whoever repacked it just shoved it back into the bag through the hole that was obviously torn open by someone poking their finger through it. This scanner is on the pricy side but based on the reviews I've seen here and elsewhere, I thought it would be useful for scanning small items for 3D printing. For the price I certainly didn't expect a used repackaged item. I feel certain that the person that had it before me found it to be defective as well and returned it. One would think that for the price, I would have gotten a brand new unit. In hopes that it was still in good working order, I set it up and gave it a try. The initial setup and calibration seemed to go okay but afterwards I placed the included 3D frog figure on the scan pad and began the scan process. The scanner seemed to be working as it should at first and the software began to display the results. Unfortunately it took nearly 12 hours to scan the simple frog figure. Hoping that it was a fluke, I reinstalled the software and USB drivers and tired again. after five hours of scanning with the same result, I just canceled the scan and gave up. This thing is going back. Update- Initially I gave the scanner one star but I must give customer support five stars. They were very quick to respond to my issues and assured me that my situation is not the norm. It was certainly beyond their control as Matter and Form isn't who repackaged the defective unit and sent it back out. They are looking into that chain of events and working hard to make things right. I'm getting a replacement unit and haven't got to try it out yet so I'll reserve a couple more stars until I can see how it goes but so far so good. Follow Up- Okay, I have a fully functioning replacement for the defective unit I received and it works perfectly. I must say that Matter and Form customer support has been outstanding in resolving my issues and has stayed in touch to assure that everything was going well. I'm still learning all the nuances and techniques for creating a watertight model from the scans but I'm getting there and they're helping with that too. The scanner performs exactly as advertised and I'm happy with it.

Ottimo. Impiega molto tempo per scansionare. Non si collega IMMEDIATAMENTE al computer

fabrication de petits objets en plastiques avec imprimante 3D pour modélisme naval

Muy bien, difícil de manejar

For first this is the only really portable table scanner. The quality of the scanning depend from the scanner setting and the room lighting condition. This last condition is crucial for every laser scanner which you use. To achieve good results you need to study the good documentation that you can download from the website. Not very good texture. The software is constantly being improved. The customer assistance is efficient, prompt response to the questions. Below some screenshots of a scan of a fossil shell (only one scann, no editing).

If you expect fine details and fast 3D scanning - this is not the scanner for you. The ideal object for scanning is matt surface and light gray color without sharp edges. Placing a white background, using diffuse light and avoiding direct sunlight improves the scans. It's good for learning and not so good for professional use.