Adjusting the scan settings can help you improve your scan results in most conditions.

The Scan Settings are available on the right-hand side of the Scan Dialog when you are about to take a scan. To take a new scan, start a new project or click Edit > New Scan in the toolbar.

HDR

This setting controls the camera's exposure range during scanning and is similar to exposure bracketing.

Example

This scene has very high contrast (black and white) and requires the "3 exposure" setting to capture the entire scene without holes. With 2 exposures, and even more so with HDR off, the scan can not detect some of the darker parts of the scene.

Recommendation

• "2 Exposures" is the default and typically provides good results without requiring as much scanning time as "3 exposures" below. Try this setting first, then decide if it should be changed.
• "3 Exposures" should be used if your scene has very dark or high contrast materials (like the "It's Lit" poster).
• "HDR Off" should only be used if your scene materials have little/no contrast (e.g. an all-white sculpture), and/or you require faster scan times, as no HDR will result in a slightly faster scan.

Scan Settings

Camera Mask

The camera mask allows you to manually select a region-of-interest within the camera image that the scan algorithm will focus on. Everything outside of the camera mask will be ignored. This is especially useful when your scene contains any shiny or reflective materials (or any other object type that will have trouble scanning).

Even if the projector is not illuminating these objects, but the camera can see them, they still can cause poor scan results. In these cases, you can use the camera mask to ensure that the pixels outside of the mask are not used when creating the scan image.

Example 1

Example 2

Recommendation

• If your scene contains any glossy, reflective, or transparent materials, you should apply the camera mask to the region of the scene that you want to project on.
• If your scan contains significant noise or distortions, try applying a camera mask to the part of the scene you are interested in scanning.
• If a large portion of your scan is missing, you can likely fix this by manually placing a camera mask over the entire projected area.

Noise Reduction

The Noise Reduction checkbox will attempt to remove incorrect correspondences from the final scan result. Most scenes should not need this, but if your scene has reflective or shiny surfaces, enabling this option may result in a better scan. One downside is that the noise reduction algorithm may actually remove valid correspondence points, resulting in a scan with more holes, so use this option with caution.

Example

Camera image of the scene. Due to the shiny and dark materials of the bike, and the very thin features, this is a very difficult scene to scan.

Recommendation

• If you notice distortions or incorrect colors/streaks in your scan, apply Noise Reduction to see if some of these issues can be removed.
• Since the noise reduction algorithm may remove valid points, only use this feature when necessary.

Smoothing

The Smoothing checkbox can be used to improve the quality of the resulting scan image, but may also cause distortions or wavy lines in scenes that have thin features or shiny materials. It is most useful for scanning flat objects, or heavily-textured materials.

Example 1

Example 2

Example 3

Smoothing applied to a scene with many reflective materials and thin features. In these cases, smoothing can make the scan result much worse, and should not be used.

Recommendation

• Smoothing is most effective for flat objects (posters, wall art, tapestries, etc), especially if they contain text or sharp edges.
• Smoothing can cause distortions, especially in scenes that have shiny or reflective materials, so only use this feature when necessary.

Safe Mode

If you are noticing that you are getting scans that look like the image below, please try enabling Safe Mode in your scan settings. Scans like this are typically caused due to a smoothing setting on the projector that interferes with our scan algorithm. Scanning with safe mode selected or disabling any smoothing settings on the projector should fix this issue.