3D scanners aren’t extremely common in the 3D printing community. There’s a reason for this: Professional solutions are expensive and DIY projects are aimed at experienced makers only.

Scientist and 3D printing enthusiast QLRO wanted to build a 3D scanner and ran up against this hurdle. He couldn’t find an automated solution that also was minimalistic. So, in true maker fashion, he decided to build his own.

The result is AA-Scan, which is much easier to build than projects like OpenScan.

The smartphone is put in a stand, while the object is placed on the 3D printed turntable. First, the camera shoots an image. Thanks to a Python script, an Arduino-driven stepper motor moves a 3D printed turntable and pings the result back to the smartphone. The smartphone and the Arduino communicate via WiFi and send the data to a free software that stitches the images together.

The project is open-source and can be downloaded on Thingiverse.

(Source: Hackaday)