MakerBot Digitizer: Low-Cost 3D Scanning Coming Of Age?

MakerBot (now a Stratasys company), the company that brought us one of the first relatively low-cost, assembled 3D printer is at it again, this time with a 3D scanner called the MakerBot Digitizer.

In an effort to appeal to the low end of 3D digitizing (much like it did with the MakerBot Replicator), the MakerBot Digitizer takes physical objects, scans them using a camera and two lasers, and creates a 3D digital file – “without any need for design or 3D software experience.” Really? I’m skeptical of this statement because it has been tried before, with relatively little success — scans of complex objects can be difficult to process into something useful.

The MakerBot Digitizer Desktop 3D Scanner is optimized for and works seamlessly with MakerBot’s Replicator Desktop 3D Printers and MakerBot Thingiverse (no surprise there).

Just connect the MakerBot Digitizer to a laptop or computer and you are ready to digitize. Is it really that easy?

According to the company, the MakerBot Digitizer Desktop 3D Scanner offers:

• Software to create clean, watertight 3D models with just two clicks
• A 3D digital design file in just minutes
• No design skills, 3D modeling, or CAD expertise required to get started
• Outputs standard 3D design file formats that can be modified and improved in third-party 3D modeling programs, like Autodesk’s free software MeshMixer
• Creates a 3D digital file that can be printed on a MakerBot Replicator 2 Desktop 3D Printer and other 3D printers
• Upload scans directly to MakerBot’s Thingiverse.com, the community for sharing 3D printable objects.
• Ability to digitize physical objects up to 8” in diameter and 8” tall and up to 3 kg (6.6 lbs.)

The ease of use and “no skills required” claims are a bit of a stretch for me, because the MakerBot Replicator is not exactly foolproof and totally autonomous, so how can the MakerBot Digitizer be that much different?

The MakerBot Digitizer is for sale at makerbot.com/digitizer. Pre-orders are being taken now, with shipping expected mid-October. Price is $1,400, plus an optional $150 for MakerBot Digitizer MakerCare, a service and support program, plus $9 shipping insurance. A total cost of $1,559 might seem like a bargain at first, but expect to see several lower-cost 3D digitizers on the market in the next few months.

At that price point, is the MakerBot Digitizer overpriced? Sight unseen and with no hands-on experience with it, I would tend to say yes, as there are a few low-cost, low-end 3D digitizers/scanners already on the market, including Microsoft’s Kinect at a fraction of the cost. Another competitor, NextEngine, has been around for several years, and yes, it costs twice as much, but seems more robust and production-ready, as well as having superior accuracy and resolution. Both the MakerBot Digitzer and the NextEngine scanner employ turntables for rotating objects for capture, but the NextEngine is able to accommodate larger objects. It’s true with 3D digitizing as with most things — you get what you pay for.

Will the MakerBot Digitizer be a hit like the MakerBot Replicator was? I would peg the probability as low. Why? A lot of competition is coming soon, and how many objects does an average DIYer/hobbyist really need to print in 3D as output, much less digitize for input? As I said in a blog post a few weeks ago, why buy when you can rent, and I think this will ultimately ring true for 3D digitizers for the common man unless the price drops quite a bit.

EDITOR’S NOTE: I am in the process of writing an authoritative, comprehensive sourcebook on 3D object scanning/digitizing/capture that will detail methods, technologies, applications, vendors, and trends. Look for it in Q2 2014.

Tags: 3D digitizer, 3D scanner, Kinect, MakerBot Digitizer, MakerBot Replicator, NextEngine

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 22nd, 2013 at 15:38. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.