The only price I saw on that "Faro Arm" was $16k, so not quite hobby level pricing. I'll have to make due with a scanner.
Rusty

“”””””” Yes, there is some software that is specialized to do this task of "Reverse engineering". But good ones can be in the $10,000 range and still have a high learning curve.”””””””

Yeah…. I use a Mitutoyo and my head..

But my explanation is still valid. The scanner is not for CAD.

I'm not sure if this helps or not... I have done quite a few scan to cad models. there is a step that need to be done before you get it into a CAD program. I would be sent the scanned model (they are very heavy) I would bring them into Blender and hand retopolize them with as low a poly count as I can get (the models were usually bottles with threads, I wouldn't do the threads in blender) I would use shrinkwrap and sub-d as an aid. Once that portion was done (all quads) I could bring them into Moi and create threads or what ever needed to be precise. It was a pretty quick activity once one got going.
cheers,
Val

Thanks for the tips. I've seen others recommend Blender as an intermediate step as well. It does sound like the initial point cloud data is huge, and reducing that size would certainly make it less painful to work with. I fear I'll have a lot to learn once I start playing with the scanner.
Rusty

Wings3D supports importing STL. PLY and OBJ and Wings3D is FREE.

Blender3D is also FREE and supports STL, PLY and OBJ as well.

https://www.wings3d.com/

You could also import your OBJ into Blender and then use the excellent Blender to Moi Addon which must be installed on both Blender and Moi3D. I've used it and it works fine.

Here is a thread on this must have plugin

https://moi3d.com/forum/index.php?webtag=MOI

Sorry but the above link does not seem to work. I am uncertain how you post a link to a thread here. I do not have this issue on other forums, so I posted a remark in the thread to make it current.

I hope that helps.

Hi Kenmo,

To grab the link to a posting or thread, use the link at the upper right corner, the one with the thread & article numbers.

Here's the thread you were referencing: https://moi3d.com/forum/index.php?webtag=MOI&msg=11634.1

--Larry

Thanks for links and suggestions. I'm still learning the basics of the scanner right now, but I'll take a look at the import options again when I have something useful to import.