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Comment by ronnyguru | Hacker News Reader

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ronnyguru·

3D Scanners typically cost 40-50K - but this one is under 3K !!?

Looks like they've got quite a big of use cases on their website. www.nextengine.com

People scanning in faces, rocks for research. It's not just for mechanical parts.

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And for the printing side: http://www.makerbot.com/

They sell kits to make your own, for under $1000. I saw one in action at a tech showcase, it was pretty awesome.

What is the relationship between Makerbot and RepRap?

Zach Smith, one of the founders/makers is in both projects. Also, we (I'm RepRap developer) collaborate on designs to print and reuse each others technologies and ideas. Because both designs are completely open source, the can reuse whatever is practical and also differentiate themselves to be used in different 'market segments'. RepRap is meant to be more adjustable and modular, and meant to be able to replicate most of its own parts. The Makerbot doesn't have this requirement and can mostly be made on a laser cutter. Although several parts of the Makerbots are printed on Makerbots and/or RepRaps.

Erik de Bruijn http://blog.erikdebruijn.nl/categories/7-RepRap

Yea, there's actually a pretty wide array of scanners. The Konica is like $80k with high speed and quality. The 3D3Solutions.com machine is low quality but fast and pretty cheap ~$5k. The 3Rivers3D.com machine is $15k but can scan fast at very good quality. The NEXT engine is good for scanning a few things at okay quality, but there are less hyped machines that have really impressive results for high value.

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