3D scanner in every house? Future of 3D scanning technology

3D scanning is associated with technology used in industry, medicine or cinematography. It seems complex and overly expensive. However, growing popularity of such kind of services may result in every one of us having 3D printer at their home.

First to conquer our imagination were 3D printers, now the time for scanners comes! Let us imagine a situation – we are preparing a birthday gift – we make a sculpture or a figure with our own hands. However, our birthday person is far away and we are unable to hand over our gift in person. What do we do? We pack our figure in a parcel, take it to post and hope it is delivered in one piece. Such a scene would look differently had we had a 3D scanner – we would scan our gift and send a digital design to our friend, who would print it using a 3D printer. We could exchange and share various objects quickly and with ease, just like we do it with documents and digital files these days, on the condition that the software and the equipment would be easy to use. However, taking technological development into account we may expect aspects of 3D scanning to be simplified. Potential is enormous and human creativity has no boundaries. What would be the direction of technological development in the aspect of 3D scanning and printing? Only time will tell.

The market has welcomed the appearance of 3D scanners designed for domestic usage. Even though technologies of 3D scanning and printing have to wait for their time, the options they give undoubtedly deserve our attention.