Yeah, that's fucked. With some serious reverse engineering and reimplementing, it sounds like it could be a pretty great product, but even if something like a FOSS implementation of the protocol StarVision uses or something like Valetudo but for the Vega existed, I wouldn't feel right about patronizing a company that does that kind of shit.
this post was submitted on 22 Feb 2025
38 points (100.0% liked)
3DPrinting
16525 readers
183 users here now
3DPrinting is a place where makers of all skill levels and walks of life can learn about and discuss 3D printing and development of 3D printed parts and devices.
The r/functionalprint community is now located at: or !functionalprint@fedia.io
There are CAD communities available at: !cad@lemmy.world or !freecad@lemmy.ml
Rules
-
No bigotry - including racism, sexism, ableism, homophobia, transphobia, or xenophobia. Code of Conduct.
-
Be respectful, especially when disagreeing. Everyone should feel welcome here.
-
No porn (NSFW prints are acceptable but must be marked NSFW)
-
No Ads / Spamming / Guerrilla Marketing
-
Do not create links to reddit
-
If you see an issue please flag it
-
No guns
-
No injury gore posts
If you need an easy way to host pictures, https://catbox.moe/ may be an option. Be ethical about what you post and donate if you are able or use this a lot. It is just an individual hosting content, not a company. The image embedding syntax for Lemmy is 
Moderation policy: Light, mostly invisible
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
Did you happen to look into Open Scan? It's reasonably open and is PI based. I don't know a ton about them, but it seems like a viable alternative at first glance.
I looked into it, but it covers a different use case. It's based on photogrammetry. For reverse engineering, you always need at least one measurement to scale the mesh. Also, you cannot scan anything bigger than the enclosed space within the scanner.
The einstar actually measures depth, so I can get measurements even if I scan the object from just one side. It stitches the measured points together by overlapping features, so it theoretically can scan infinitely large objects.
A big reason why I wanted an All-in-one 3D scanner was because I want to reverse engineer objects I see "in the wild" and in museums. The staff there might not appreciate it when I put a ruler on their stuff.
Thanks for the reply, I was genuinely curious and haven't looked into this much beyond window glancing.
I've done some level of flatbed scanning with a ruler to get a known scale and the results have been pretty consistent, but I totally get not wanting to be size limited. I generally print bigger things, which is one of the reasons why I haven't looked at a scanner very hard.
A big reason why I wanted an All-in-one 3D scanner was because I want to reverse engineer objects I see "in the wild" and in museums
That's an interesting use case that I hadn't considered. Makes sense that you want portable and adds the extra challenge of likely not being able to touch the object being scanned.
Shining3D also makes professional-level scanners that cost as much as a car, so I banked on them putting some of that expertise into their consumer models and went with the Einstar.
Seems like you were correct.
Oh yeah, we have an old Shining3D scanner in our makerspace, and the amount of trouble that company has been...