here’s how to setup your scanner. connect the usb and power cables to the scanner. open the scanner by pressing the button at the top and unfolding the bed and the support arm. choose a flat, steady surface
nets of 3d shapes to print, that won’t wobble or risk getting moved during scanning. install the matter and form software to ensure you have the drivers on your computer. you can download the software from our website,
matterandform.net. once everything is connected, press the power button. your computer will detect the new hardware and install the drivers. lighting is very important to getting a good scan, and it’s easy to get it right. there are three things to remember: one - don’t position the scanner
so the camera is facing a bright light source, like a window or a lamp. two - don’t point spotlights, desk lamps, or other bright lights at the camera bed. and three - normal, ambient room lighting is the best. when you start the scanning software, you will see a message indicating the scanner has connected. finally, don’t forget: nothing fixes connection problems like
a reboot of the scanner and the computer. after you start the matter and form scanning software and run through the onboarding tutorial, your scanner will be set up and ready to go. now it’s time to calibrate. from the home screen, press the calibrate button. select the calibration device you have. if you have a calibration card, you’ll be shown how to attach the card to its base.
when you’re ready, place your calibration device in the middle of the scan bed, with the check board facing the scan head. then press the “begin†button. exposure tuning will take a few moments, then the calibration will begin. the bed will turn in a semi-circle, the lasers will fire, and the head will move up. the scanner may make a grinding noise,
but don’t worry, that’s normal for the first time it is calibrated. for the second step of calibration, you’ll need to move the calibration device a few centimetres towards the head of the scanner and then hit continue. the same exposure tuning, bed rotation and head movement will take place again. when step 2 is complete, the final step takes a few minutes
while calculations are performed to perfect the calibration. when the calibration completes you should receive feedback indicating an 'amazing' result. if you don’t get an 'amazing' result, it’s often because of lighting. check out the tutorial on setting up your scanning area for best practices. if you have questions or need help please email us at
support@matterandform.net now you’re ready to scan your first object. this is the object we'll be scanning. it's a small vase, about 10 centimeters tall by 5 centimeters wide. first, click 'new scan' on the home screen. we’ll select ‘single coloured scan’ for this object since its colours are fairly uniform. for items with contrasting colours,
you would select 'multi-coloured scan'. we cover multi-coloured scanning in chapter 4 of this tutorial. tuning will find the camera settings for laser and color detection that are best for this object. then, scanning will start. the lasers hit the object and data is captured which then appears in the scanning software screen as 3d 'points'.
feel free to walk away and let the scanner do it’s thing. this object takes about 30 minutes to scan. we’ve sped up the recording for the tutorial. when the scan is complete a save screen will appear. click the green button to save your scan as an mfcx file. mfcx is a special file format designed for matter and form scanners. mfcx scan files can always be opened and edited in the matter and form scanner software.
there’s more on file saving and exporting, including exporting for use in 3d printing, in chapter 7. to demonstrate multi-coloured scan, i’m going to use this penguin, with very noticeable contrasting colours. it’s about 20 centimeters tall by 10 centimeters wide. if you’re unsure when to use multi-coloured or single-coloured,
there is a short and easy step-by-step guide in the user manual, which you can download from the scanner software’s help screen. first, you’ll want to place the object so that the laser is hitting its lightest colour, which for us is the penguin’s belly. then click the “confirm lightest colour†button. the tuning progresses,
then you’re presented with this screen again. now, you move the object so that the laser is hitting the area with the darkest colours. you can either move the object by hand on the scan bed, or you can use the buttons provided to rotate the bed in either direction. it is ok if the laser hits both the darkest and some of the lightest as well. when you’re happy with the positioning,
press 'confirm darkest colour'. the exposure tuning runs again, and when complete the scanning starts. multi-colour takes longer than single colour, because it takes twice as much scanning to capture both the light and the dark areas. despite that, this feature is a unique one for matter and form and really expands the flexibility for the types of objects you can scan. when the scan is complete, save it as an mfcx file.
on most scans, you’ll probably see extra points floating around your object. this 'point noise' is normal and is easy to remove using the cleaning feature, accessed by pressing the 'clean' button. start with auto clean. this will clean up most of the point noise. you can use auto clean as many times as you like, and each time more points will be removed.
if too much is removed, you can always click the 'undo' button to undo each removal in sequence. keep in mind, a little bit of point noise is normal, but if you get a lot, the reason is usually because the scanning area is lit too brightly. if you find you are getting a lot of point noise,
review the chapter on scanner setup and lighting. you can crop points from the bottom or the center of the scan using the slider controls. the crop from the bottom option is particularly useful for removing any points detected from the scan bed. the points coloured red are the ones that are selected for removal. press 'delete selected points' to remove them.
brush cleaning gives you an adjustable brush for more precise point removal. turn your object all the way around to ensure you get everything. and remember, if you make a mistake, you can always click 'undo'. when you choose save or you close the cleaning panel, you are given the choice on whether to permanently remove the cleaned points.
choosing yes deletes the cleaned points from the scan permanently. so, we recommend always saving your original scans as mfcx files, then cleaning them afterwards. that way if you make a mistake you still have the original. when you’re done cleaning you should re-save as an new mfcx file. now that you have a final cleaned file,
you’ll notice that the bottom, and most likely the top of the object, has missing information. this is because the laser and the camera couldn’t see these parts during the scan. don’t worry - there is a solution. to capture the top and bottom of your object, you’ll just need to scan it in a different position. in this case, we’ll lay the vase on its side,
so that its top and bottom will be visible to the camera and the lasers. when the new scan is complete and cleaned, save it, and you’ll be be ready to combine the two. the final combined scan is oriented the same way as the first opened scan. so, let’s open the vase scan where it’s upright. after it’s open, select the combine button and choose the file you would like to combine with,
and let the software process. combining works by identifying key matching reference points from the two scans, which are then aligned to create a single point cloud. combining the two scans will give you a complete 3d model. some more complicated shapes may take a number of combines to get every angle. as you’ve seen,
the scanner produces a detailed point cloud of the scanned object. the point cloud can be exported to one of several popular file formats. one of the most common 3d file types is stl. stl files are used for 3d printing. the process of transforming a point cloud into an stl file is called meshing. meshing creates triangular faces using the 3d points,
and ensures that the model does not have holes. this removal of holes is known as making the scan 'watertight'. click the save/export button and choose stl. since we’ve already cleaned the scan, we’ll skip that, and will be presented which mesh options. the most important setting is the octree depth. the higher the octree depth, more more detail you’ll get, and the longer your object will take to mesh.
an octree depth of 7 is good for objects that have smooth surfaces. octree 9 is better for objects with more surface detail. try different octree depth values to see what the final mesh looks like for each scan you do, until you find the value that gives you the best result for that scan. for the vase, we’ll use the default, octree 8. keep in mind, an stl will not save the colour of your object, just the shape. the colour layer is known as texture.
if you want to save that info, you will want to save your object as an obj file. that has an option for texture blending, which adds to the time it takes to do the export, but gives photo-realistic results. you can store and show off your scans for free at bevelpix.com. bevelpix is a growing community of scans and 3d photography which lets share your work on facebook, twitter
and many other sites, all for free. for plenty more information about scanning you can download our full user manual at matterandform.net. also at matterandform.net,
you can sign up for a free, live, online learning session with one of our specialists. to get in touch, email us at support@matterandform.net thanks for watching this tutorial, and happy scanning!
