The company offering spherical photo prints has now launched a beta program for a new Android scanning device.

Scandy is a company specialized in all things 3D. Their first product turn 3D photo snapshots into interesting spherical prints. Now they are up to their next product: A $500 smartphone 3D scanner. Their goal is to make it easy to scan objects in 3D.

“Scandy Pro allows” you to capture the world around you with a clip-on camera on your Android device. It is aiming to make it easier to print full-color 3D prints for anyone with the right technology.  In order to bring this technology to a bigger audience, the company announced it raised a $1 million financing round.

“As a maker, the potential for creating dimensionally accurate models on a sub-millimeter scale from a system that costs less than $500 is something I’ve been dreaming about for years,” Scandy’s co-founder and CTO Cole Wiley says. “I’m really proud we are able to provide this solution.”

How does the smartphone 3D scanner work?

According to their video, the smartphone 3D scanner already works. It uses technology from pmdtechnologies, the world leader of 3D Time-of-flight 3D image sensors. The 3D scanner is a small device which just clips onto your Android phone and uses a cable to transfer data.

The resolutions of Scandy Pro’s 3D sensor specifications look quite impressive: It can scan with up to 0.3 mm feature precision and could provide an equivalent to expensive scanning solutions. The software is able to scan around 3 frames per second in full 3D. It then compiles and renders these scans in-app. You can then export your scans into your favorite 3D modeling program or even the ever popular Unity engine which drives most modern games. Also, the models can be exported for use in video games or for AR/VR applications. Or, of course, they can be 3D printed.

 

On the market so far are a few established players. For example, Autodesk’s 123D Catch has a far lower resolution, but, unlike Scandy Pro, it doesn’t rely on additional hardware to do its 3D scans. Also, eora 3D wants to offer high-precision 3D scanning on your smartphone.

Scandy is making currently its “Scandy Core SDK” available to developers. Their hope is that others will begin running with the technology to create implementations of 3D scanning. If you’re interested, you can find the beta program here. Shipping should be made by the end of the year.

(Source: TechCrunch)