3D scanning a walnut with the HP Pro S3

Yes, you can even 3D scan a walnut. 

All you need to do is to calibrate the HP 3D scanner Pro S3 using the smallest calibration scale, 30mm, on the calibration panel. 

A walnut has various protrusions and as result, creates lots of shadows when casting the projector light onto it.  So we propped up the walnut on a black foam to ensure the projector light could penetrate the walnut as much as possible. 

We used black foam that comes inside pelican briefcases. One of our customers taught us this trick and it really works well as the 3D scanner only captures some bits of the foam due to its dark color.  The bits captured can be easily deleted in the editing phase.

Figure 1: Setup

Below is the combination of the 3D scan files, all 47 different scans as we tried to capture the undercut as much as possible. The 3D scans still have have holes as was really difficult to penetrate the projector light into every undercut of the walnut.  Furthermore,  the difficulty was aligning the front and the back of the walnut as the side profile was pretty difficult to capture.

Figure 2:  3D scan results

And here is the fusion results after the HP 3D Scan software automatically closed all the holes to create a watertight model.

And now we know that the walnut is 1,314 mm³ or 0.08 in³!

Figure 3: Fusion Results

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We just wanted to show you with this blog that you can 3D scan even a walnut!

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Our FREE TURNTABLE (worth $1,199) FOR EVERY HP 3D SCANNER PRO S3 PURCHASE campaign is ending soon, so if you are contemplating buying the HP Pro S3 3D scanner, now is the time!

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​Growshapes is an HP Silver Partner of HP 3D scanning solutions and the official U.S. distributor of Open Technologies 3D Scanners - an endorsement that makes us proud.

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