Photogrammetry Apps Comparison:
123D Catch vs. Trnio vs. Scann3D vs. Seene
3D Scanners are getting more mobile as we speak. The Structure Scanner I reviewed recently can be attached to an iPhone 6 with a special case. And Matter and Form has developed a 3D Scanning add-on for Android and iOS smartphones—the Bevel—that will be available soon. And this summer, you can buy the first phone (allright, phablet) made by Lenovo with Google’s depth sensing technology—Project Tango—integrated.
It makes sense: we’re already capturing the world around us in 2D with our smartphone cameras while our dedicated devices lay in a drawer somewhere. So it’s natural that we want to capture 3D wherever and whenever we want and share it directly online.
But while depth sensors are indeed getting small enough to be pocketable soon, pure-software photogrammetry solutions that can generate 3D objects from regular 2D photos are getting smarter and faster, too. So I started asking myself:
do consumers actually need dedicated 3D capturing hardware on their phones if software can do the trick?
To test the current state of software-only mobile 3D scanning, I tested four different smartphone photogrammetry apps: 123D Catch, Trnio, Scann3D & Seene on the same object under the same circumstances.