iSense Comes to the iPhone

It wasn’t all that long ago I was bemoaning the lack of accessible 3D scanners as part of the roadblock that keeps 3D printing from being more widely adopted. Those times may be coming to an end. Not only is it possible to use your phone to produce usable scans, companies have begun producing scanners within reach of the average consumer.

For further proof, witness 3D Systems’ (3DS) iSense scanner. The iSense is a portable scanner (as is its brother the Sense), and it connects to Apple devices to offer a range of capabilities that aren’t necessarily standard for other scanning systems. Originally designed to operate in concert with an iPad, the iSense has recently been adapted to also work with the much more commonly owned iPhone.

The iSense portable scanner has become available for the iPhone as well as the iPad. Courtesy of 3DS.

“Working with 3D Systems has let us bring the latest improvements to our 3D scanning engine from the iPad to the iPhone for the first time ever,” said Adam Rodnitzky, VP of marketing for Occipital. “The iSense for iPhone and iPad brings the powerful and unique capabilities of content optimization for 3D printing designed for consumer use.”

Interestingly, the iSense doesn’t fit directly on to an iPhone, regardless of the shift. Instead the scanner attaches to a 3D printed iPhone case, produced by Cubify, which then snaps onto your phone. The fact that 3DS looked directly to additive manufacturing (AM) for a solution to the problem is an effective demonstration of the possibilities offered by 3D printing and 3D scanning.

As far as specs, the iSense has 3-4 hours of battery life while in operation, an accuracy of 0.1 mm, and requires iOS 7 or later. It has a maximum scan volume of 3 x 3 x 3 m, a minimum scan volume of 0.2 x 0.2 x 0.2 m, and a depth image size of 640 x 480.

Other features include editing of scanned objects, the ability to print objects from your scans, either through the cloud or directly to your 3D printer through the scanner’s integration with Cubify. The iSense is priced $499.

Below you’ll find a video about the iSense.

Source: 3DS