Choosing a 3D scan, it can be overwhelming with so many options, each with their own strengths, quirks, and price points, it's tough to know which one will fit in your workflow. In this video, we're going to go through every major scanner in the SHINING 3D range as of 2026, from the entry level devices all the way through to their high end metrology grade systems. By the end of the video, you should know all the differences between the SHINING scanners, and you'll be able to choose the perfect one for your needs. The shining ecosystem is broken into three ranges. The Ein star range is the entry level collection that's geared towards hobbyists and light users. These scanners are great for those who don't have a huge budget, and they just want to dip their toes into the world of 3D scanning. Next up is the ion scan range, which is their professional collection. These scanners a quick, accurate and fantastic for reverse engineering components. They also all feature color cameras so they can capture color details, which is great for asset creation and product rendering. Moving on up to the top range we have the metrology scanners. These scanners are designed with accuracy first and they're certified for this, with some of the devices achieving up to five microns of accuracy. The metrology range is for anyone looking to accurately inspect components. these scanners are also exceptional for reverse engineering, especially if you have very small or detailed components. I think now is a good point to run through some of the scanning terminology I've been using. For those not familiar, when I talk about inspection, this is a process where you use 3D scan data to check that something you've created or received is actually what it should be. When we inspect apart, we usually compare it back to its true model. The original drawings or the cat find it was manufactured from to make sure that it is accurate and to find any discrepancies or imperfections. Reverse engineering, on the other hand, is the process of taking a physical part and recreating the model in CAD usually so you can make design changes, adjustments or create other products, interact and fit with something that already exists. Having accurate scan data makes this process so much easier, as you can model around it and use it to make sure that what you're creating is correct and going to work when you manufacture it. Another common use for scanning is asset creation. This is the process of collecting detailed scan data to then use it as it is in rendering of a scene video game assets, or even for documentation and preservation of heritage science, museum artifacts and so on. there are, of course, many other applications for scanning from simulation to medical research to architecture. The list goes on. Right. I think it's time to jump into the scanners. I'll start my way at the bottom and I work my way up in price, running through each scanner in order. Feel free to use the chapter guide below to skip ahead to the scanners. You're interested in, or stick around to get the full picture. This is the EinSTAR series of scanners. And I've got all four of them here to compare. So you can see the differences between them cause they're all quite similar. But there's lots of little nuances starting off at the bottom. We have the EinSTAR which is the original. And this is a cable scanner. So this runs by cable to your computer. Your computer is what does all the processing. It's a structured light scanner. So projects onto the part. And then looks at that projection to see how it deforms to figure out its shape. So it's very good at doing medium to large objects. It's less good on the small detailed objects. Moving on now to the EinStar two and the EinStar rocket now are grouped together because they're very similar devices. You can see visually very similar. And they're both wireless laser scanner. So they talk to your computer. Computer's still doing all the processing, but without a cable. So you're not dragging your cable around with you now. in terms of specs, they're very similar. The only difference is the rocket has a few more lasers in it. So it's a little bit quicker, is scanning and can also scan without using markers if you want it to, which is quite unique for a laser scanner. Lastly, we're on to the EinStar Vega, which is the final one in the EinStar range. And you can see this visually looks very different to all the other scanners in the range. And this is because it's an all in one scanner. We got all the sensors in the front and then we've got the screen on the back. So this whole back sections a screen. And this means you can see what you're scanning while you're scanning it. It's a structured light scanner again. So it doesn't have lasers. So it's not as accurate. But it's very good for things where you need really good color detail. And you want to pick up things like asset creation on the go where you don't need power, you don't tether laptop. You want to just run on board, get it out of your pocket and start scanning things. That's what it's made for. Here in front of me. I've got the EinScan Rigil and the EinScan Medixa I've grouped together because they're very similar scanners. Visually, you can see they come from the same range that based on the same hardware, but they have very different applications and uses. So I'll go through them one by one. The EinScan Rigil is the engineering scanner of the two, and this is because it has a laser module on it. So you'll notice both of them have the same sort of design. And that's because they both got on board computing. You've got the camera barrel on the top here. And then you've got the screen on the back where you can see everything you're doing now. The rigid we can run tethered to a computer. So you can run it by cable. You can run it wirelessly to a computer, or you can run it fully on board without a computer. So you've got three different ways of using it. The Medixa as the name suggests, is a medical scanner. It's very similar to the Rigil except it's only got a structured light mode on board. And this is because that's better at scanning people. The UI on board as well is geared directly towards the medical industry. It takes you through the whole process of scanning a prosthetic, or a leg, or an arm or whatever part of the body you want to scan, and you never have to connect to a computer. All runs onboard so the technician can use it directly in the clinic without any other stuff. This is the SHINING 3D Inspect Two which is one of my personal favorite scanners. It's a small little inspection scanner which is got really high accuracy for the price. It's accurate to ten microns, and it's automatic in its scanning. You can see it has a turntable jig here which can move around to different angles. You secure the part in a vice. And then what it'll do is cameras are up here. It'll take a frame and then move it to the next position. Take the next frame and it'll change angles each time to tackle it from all different sides. Once it has the full 3D model, it can automatically inspect that as well on inspection reports that you've set up ahead of time. So within under a minute, you can get a full inspection report on a small part. Its only limitation really is the size. You can obviously only do really small parts on it, so it's not good if you're looking to do really big things, but it's ideal if you're trying to inspect really quickly. Lots of very small, tiny parts. This is the FreeScan combo, and this is the entry level scanner in SHINING’s metrology range. So it's kind of the very first one in the metrology range. Now, this is probably the most popular scanner of all of the shining scanners. It's a cabled scanner cable to your computer. So your computer does all the processing. But as I said it's in the metrology range. It's metrology rated. It's accurate to 20 microns. And it's fantastic. If you want to get into inspection you want to get into accurate reverse engineering. It's a really good all rounder scanner. It has a laser unit in the middle here and an infrared node. So the laser is really good for getting these high accuracy scans with markers. And the infrared modes are really good. If you want to scan larger things without markers, it can track without that. The free scan combo is a great all rounder. We see it used in all sorts of different industries. The most common one is probably the automotive industry is great for doing car parts, body panels, components, engines, anything that comes with the car, you name it. This will scan it really, really nicely. And because it's got the laser in the infrared motor, you can go down to really small intricate components all the way up to the entire car if you need it to. The free scan combo is really easy to use. It's very quick to train someone on it. It's very simple. The software is a workflow based, so anyone kind of pick it up and get running with it. And it has the controls on the back so you can change things on the scan as you're going. So you guys keep running back and forth your computer as well. It's all round, very easy to use, scan it and gives you very good quick consistent results. the EinScan Libra is an absolute beast of a scanner. As you can see from its design, it's got two different modes on it. It's got an infrared and laser mode, but unlike the other scanners, these are completely broken up into separate bits of hardware. You can see a long top to bottom sign for a mode. Side to side we have our laser mode, and on the back we have a screen. So this scanner is all on board all processes onboard if you need it to. The EinScan Libra in the EinScan Rigil are often compared as being quite similar to each other. It's true that they have similar capabilities, but the Libra has a lot more processing power behind it. It's much faster at processing data as many more laser lines. It's much quicker at collecting data as much higher resolution cameras so will get much better textures and much better tracking, and it's generally a much faster scanner to work with. If you wanted to do lots of big projects with scanning lots at one time, you want to take it on site for days at a time, scanning lots of stuff. The Libra is a fantastic workhorse. The Libra is unmatched when it comes to working with large data sets all on board is very good at working with lots of data all at once, and there's a matching piece of PC software that lets you load in all the scans, align them, work with them, and kind of work with lots of projects all at once. It's very good for working with large amounts of data. Generally this is my go to scanner for scanning anything that's not in the office. If I need to go outside to scan a part of a car, I can just pick this up, take it out, do a good quality scan that I know is going to be fast Take it back to the office to process and work with the data there. you're looking for an all on board scanner that can handle lots of high quality large data sets, then the EinScan Libre is the scanner for you. this is the FreeScan Trio. And as the name suggests, it has three of something. And that's cameras. The cameras are very high resolution and they can see a lot of details. So they're very good if you're trying to scan very small very fine parts. That's what this excels at. It also has 98 lasers in it, which means it's very quick at scanning if you're trying to cover a large area. when you're using the 98 Laser line mode, you can track by features, which means it follows the features of the part instead of markers, which means you're doing really large, feature rich objects. It's very quick to scan. It also uses a technology called video photogrammetry where if you're trying to scan a really large area, it can do it very accurately over that distance. This scanner is ideal for someone who wants to scan really small to really large parts, where accuracy is critical and the fine details really, really matter. This is the FreeScan Omni, which is one of the latest in the shining 3D metrology range. You'll notice that visually, the front looks a lot like a combo, except it's now got a screen on it and it's can process everything on board. It also comes with the dock so you can dock it to charge, and it will also connect through the dock to your computer. So the wireless data transfer is very, very fast. This is similar to the combo in that it has a laser mode and an infrared mode. Is that the laser mode now has many more lasers. It's 93. Lasers make it even quicker at picking up data. one of the really clever things this scanner can do is inspection on board, which is something completely new to the 3D scanning market. And what this means is that on your computer, you can set up an inspection template. You can upload your can file, you can tell it how you want it to inspect what measurements are important, make color maps, create anything that you want to be in the final PDF report, and then you can upload that template onto the scanner. And then this means you can go out onto a shop floor, onto a factory floor, pull a part of a production line, scan it in place, and then you instantly get a report to say pass or fail. If the parts intolerance out of tolerance, where it's gone wrong, what's correct and what's incorrect on it. And that all happens on the device. You don't work on a computer, you don't plug it in. It does it all on the screen of the device for you. So it's a very quick way of inspecting and checking on parts that you've produced. The FreeScan Omni can be bought as the complete package, but you can also buy it in modules. So you can buy just the scanner and dock itself. And then later if you want to upgrade, not the inspection package and other features to it, you can do, which makes it much cheaper. If you just want a good reverse engineering scanner that's going to have the wireless capability through the dock. The FreeScan Track Nova is one of the most interesting scanners in the range. It tackles a very interesting problem in a very interesting way, and that is positioning markers. If you've ever used a 3D scanning before, you'll know that lots of them, including lots we shown today, using little positioning markers to figure out where they are. They're essentially little reflective stickers, but you've got to stick them on anything that you want to scan. The Free Scan Track Nova gets away from using positioning markers, by being a two part system. You can see behind us we've got the track bar and here we've got the T E Nova, which is the scanner itself. And instead of the T E Nova trying to figure out where it is by looking at position markers, the track bar figures out with a T E Nova is. So as I'm moving this around, the track bar follows it and it knows where we are in space. The advantage of this is we can scan very large parts very quickly with no surface preparation. We can just set up the track bar, set up the scanner and start scanning. It's very quick to use what's really special is that the UE NOVA when used by itself, is essentially an enormous laser scanner. It has about two meters by two meters of view and it's very fast to pick up data. So if you want to scan a really large area very quickly, it's perfect for it. It does follow positioning markers, but they're much bigger than the standard marker and they spread out much further apart. So it's been way quicker to put them on and take them off. This is ideal if you want to inspect things like wind turbine blades or helicopters, busses, large vehicles, large objects. This is what it's made for. If you want to use the system for inspection, you can also use the free probe, which is a probe links up to the Track Nova and allows you to take probe points directly inside your inspection software, either Shining inspect or poly works. How this works is you go and place the probe on the surface you want to take, and then you push the button to take that point. So this allows you to measure between points on a part, take holes centre lines, create planes. You can basically measure any feature you can imagine inside the inspection software without having to capture the mesh. This is very good. If you want to inspect lots of features very quickly without having to scan the whole thing as a mesh, overall the free scan track Nova is the absolute best scanner if you're trying to scan anything from really small to really large with minimal work, it's very easy to use. It's very quick to set up and everything's wireless. You don't have to worry about cables dragging around the place when you're working on such large scales. This scanner is the optimum scan Q12. And it's the most accurate scanner in the range. It's a turntable based scanner. So it's good for doing small to medium sized parts. And it's got an automatic turntable. So it'll do it all for you. You put the part on it'll do rotations around to get all the shots from all the different angles. It's also got an attachment that's very similar to the one from the, inspector 2 which lets you move the part up at different angles, like a three axis arm for it, and it can be mounted on a robot arm. Even so, you can get around even bigger parts. it's a blue light, single shot scanner, which means it keeps the parts still when it's scanning, and it projects a series of lines onto the part, taking measurements off of those. Once it's done a frame, it will then move the part around and take another frame from a different angle. the advantage of this is that the part is completely still when being scans, it doesn't need to account for movement or vibrations. It will hold it completely still and get really accurate data each time. The other pro, too, is a scanner, which sits between the free scan combo and the trio in the range. It's essentially a wireless version of the combo, which sends all the data to the computer via Wi-Fi into the cable. It also features video photogrammetry, allowing you to get a better volumetric accuracy. That's accuracy over longer distances than the converters. The Track Pro W is a scanner which works in a very similar way to the track Nova. It's a track system which uses a track bar to follow the scanner, removing the need for markers. The big difference between this scanner and the track nova is that the track nova has 3.5m of range, whereas the Track Pro W has over eight meters. This is perfect if you need to scan very large areas. We find the scanner ideal if you have a workshop where you want to roll in the car, scan it all at once without having to move the bar. The W in its name stands for wireless, as it's also a completely wireless system, just like the track Nova. Any of the scanners you've seen today can be automated further. We have a robot arm table for any of them to be connected to. This brings the automation to the next level. As you can place a part on the table and leave the scanner to do all the work for you. This is designed for anyone who's looking to do a very high throughput of parts, with very minimal human interaction and lots of repeatability. So that's the full run through. Hopefully you can see that whilst there are a lot of scanners in the portfolio, each one has its own unique strengths and features. here at try and make Manufacturing Solutions. There isn't anything we haven't scanned before from planes and helicopters, crocodiles and lions. Movie props to what seems like every single machine engineering component under the sun. Perhaps you have a really niche application. And even though you're still unsure which scanner is best, or maybe you want to see a certain scanner in action and have a go with it yourself and scan some of your own parts. Well, the good news is that, as you can see, we have all the scanners right here in our headquarters in the Midlands, as well as in many of our offices around the UK and Ireland. If you do want to learn more, please do reach out to us as we can help you make the right choice of scanner for you.