Turning Figurines to .stl

[Armatron 2]

So i have about 60 to 70 old Christmas Figurines i inherited from my grandmother.  what software or machine can i use on the cheap of course so i can turn them into .stl's

[GregValiant 1,245]

"On the Cheap" is an issue and is subjective.

There are small scanners that may be appropriate.  Some of the cheap ones receive really horrible reviews.  Looking around today I found these...

 

Creality has a "CR Scan Lizard" on sale for $570.00.  You'd only be paying about $8.75/figurine.

 

There are several "Ciclop" scanners in different colors and by different names.  They run around $150 but those are the ones with a lot of bad reviews.  About $2.25/figurine.

 

At the other end are handhelds like the Peel 3 that runs $8655.00 (Free shipping!).  About $135/figurine.

 

Whatever scanner you would decide on - even when it works as advertised it ends up being all about the translation software that takes the scanner point cloud and turns it into an STL/3mf/OBJ file.

I'm thinking at least two more learning curves here.

 

[Armatron 2]

Well damn and damn cr scan lizard ill look into and 8k is mind-blowing even with the free shipping. Software to translate is the new learning curve. ive been using netfabb to get rid of the pesky water tight issue on some of the prints. Ideas on software i should be using.  Once again, Greg, you're the man.

[GregValiant 1,245]

I've done extensive scans of auto accident scenes, and of buildings and smaller ones of accident damage to individual vehicles.  I always sent the actual scan data to another guy who I believe used Rhino.  I'd get back the files with all the dots connected and I could manipulate them in AutoCad.  They weren't model files but they were similar to STL files in that they had lots of triangles but the software (as I recall) made no attempt to close edges or things like that.  That was a dozen years ago and I'm sure things have moved on.

FYI that laser scanner was $45,000.00 ($700/figurine if you are keeping score).

[Armatron 2]

I've heard of Rhino.  AutoCAD would be another learning curve.  I was using I forget the software Autofusion was before the big merge.  I made a few things for myself. Never to sell. Now you can find a lot of info on 3dprinting .  Back when i bought the mini...Hmm 2016.  it was sparse. i did a lot of looking and learning. I'm glad things are better now.