Revopoint 3D Unveils the MINI, Its First Portable Blue-Light Industrial-Grade 3D Scanner

3D imaging expert Revopoint 3D has announced its next-generation 3D scanner, the Revopoint MINI, which it claims offers a 0.02mm precision and is capable of 10 frames per second scanning over a Wi-Fi connection — for $540 or less.

"Through creating the MINI, Revopoint aims to lower the barriers around 3D modeling learning, enabling designers to free themselves from the tedious modeling work to focus more on creation itself," claims Revopoint's Huanhuan Li. "MINI dramatically lowers the threshold for 3D creative production, allowing you to quickly build a 3D digital world while improving modeling efficiency by more than ten times."

The Revopoint MINI's name suggests a less-capable alternative to the POP 2, which the company launched on Kickstarter late last year. Its specifications, however, tell a different story: Where the POP 2 offered a claimed 0.05mm scan precision and 0.1mm accuracy (around 0.002" and 0.004" respectively), the Revopoint MINI is claimed to hit 0.02mm precision and 0.05mm accuracy (around 0.0008" and 0.002" respectively) measured at the single frame level.

The accuracy gain comes, Revopoint explains, from a shift away from infrared illumination to a blue light source — the same type used in industrial scanning systems. There is one trade-off, however: The new Revopoint MINI offers a shorter maximum working distance of 200mm to the POP 2's 400mm (around 7.87" from 15.75"), though drops the minimum distance from 150mm to 100mm (around 5.91" to 3.94"). It is also capable of handling scans half the size of its predecessor, down to 10×10×10mm (around 0.39×0.39×0.39").

The scanner itself functions in turntable and handheld modes, with Revopoint offering a dual-axis turntable add-on for the former and a handheld stabilizer accessory for the latter. Scan data can be transmitted over Wi-Fi or micro-USB, with claimed support for Windows and macOS PCs and Android and iOS smartphones and tablets.

Revopoint says the scanner with basic handle-and-stand accessory will retail at $769, but is presently taking pre-orders on Kickstarter starting at $399 for early-bird backers and rising to $538 for the remainder of the crowdfunding campaign. At the time of writing the company had raised over a million dollars, well above its target, and was on-track for delivery beginning in August 2022.