Tips for scanning with the Ciclop

I’m just getting started, but I’ve already discovered a few good tips.

  1. Lighting. You want good, even lighting. I think I’m going to try to build a lightbox (softbox) with lights on the top and sides after discussing my setup with photographers. If anyone has done this, I’d love to see it.
  2. Reflection. If your camera or lasers are pointed at anything even a little bit reflective, the scans go wonky. In my first tests, I had the Ciclop on my desk at work, pointing past me to the windowed office 8 ft behind me. The reflection from the window picked up on the scan and I could actually see the distorted reflection of my object surrounding the close up scan.
  3. Backdrop. It seems like the horus scanner is set to ignore black. I setup a backdrop with a black felt blanket and my scans got a LOT better.

What have you found?

The reflection piece may be what I am running into as well. I think i’ll try scanning inside a cardboard box with a hole in the top for lighting.

Set the focus on the camera!
Save your scan profile(s). No two objects seem to scan quite the same.
Use the Video panel in the Scanning mode to monitor the line as registered by Horus for generating the points. Super helpful.