Brand new to 3D scanning, got my hands on an Otter, and now could use some initial pointers.

I’ve done some goofing around scanning, hobbling my way through using the Lidar on my iPhone just for the fun and novelty of it. I’ve also watched a load of broad-strokes videos, so I think my expectations are in the right place.

I’ve been seeing people talk about the Otter device as a solid consumer option, and today I happened upon one at a price I couldn’t pass up. So I got it. My first impressions are good and have so far exceeded my meager expectations.

My use case is mostly twofold. 1. Low-stakes reference imaging for functional 3D printing (e.g., get a mostly accurate shape of a real-world thing, so that I can design other things to fit in/on it). And 2. Archival purposes (e.g., scanning headstones for the local historical society, scanning artifacts for their researchers, etc.).

After a few standard get-to-know-the-device scans, I thought I’d take a stab at a real-world application. Specifically, the center console of a car for the purpose of designing a modification for it. The console is a dark matte grey, and in geometry mode, the scanner seems to think it’s moving infinitely to the side, and in texture mode, it has a lot of trouble keeping hold of the object.

I have not yet moved into using markers, and my scanning environment so far has been fairly dark. Both of which are things I’ll have to experiment with to get a better feel for this thing’s quirks and limitations. But, I also thought I would join this sub and see if I could get some pointers for a total noob. Perhaps some YouTube channel recommendations for beginners. Maybe some do’s and don’ts to save me from wasting time in trial and error. I’ve got 30 days to decide if I’m going to keep this thing or take it back, so I want to get as much experience with it as I can right away.

Whatever you think might help me at this stage, I’d appreciate it!