The next generation 3D Scanner

The Artec group proudly announces the release of a brand new 3D scanner — Artec MHT. This scanner acquires 3D data at high speeds, is hand-held, and captures brilliant color of the object.

The scanner has been in development for almost a year. The goal was to make an affordable, hand-held, portable 3D scanner with texture, which will be unmatched by existing technology. We have succeeded. Every employee at the company had a hand in creating this innovation.

The R&D department’s job was to take our existing technology and improve it. The daunting task was adding the ability to capture texture to an existing model (Artec MH). That meant adding lots of extra hardware into an already crammed casing without overheating the device.

The programmer’s task was to create algorithms that will take heavy video stream color data and process it quickly without the need for an unreasonably powerful PC. Since, the Artec MHT scanner is meant to be portable, many people use laptops when working with the scanner. Laptops, by their nature, are not nearly as powerful as desktop PCs or servers, so our software had to be able to process lots of data without a lot of computer resources.

All the hard work paid off. The result is a scanner that scans at 15 frames per second, has 0.1mm accuracy, and captures brilliant texture at 24 bits per pixel. It never overheats and can be used with a standard laptop. This scanner is hand-held, connects via regular USB, weighs about 3.5 pounds (1.6kg), and costs less than $20K.