I recently discovered that Epic Games has an app that allows you to scan real-world objects and turn them into highly detailed 3D models. These models can be created using some of the best 3D modeling software and are also compatible with game engines such as Unreal Engine 5.
Reality Scan is one of the coolest apps on my phone right now and it is 100% free to use. As someone who is really into 3D printerthis opens up a whole new creative opportunity for me to finally make my own models to print instead of searching for free STL files online. Using this app I was able to convert a regular apple into a 3D print (more on that later).
The Reality Scan app is a great tool for creative professionals, and although it may not be one of the best laptops for 3D modeling At the very least, it can help beginners in game development get a better understanding of how 3D modeling works. I found the app to be very easy to use too, with guided on-screen instructions and an augmented reality mesh that lets you see how your scan is progressing in real time.
This all happened during a casual chat in the office with Ian Dean, our Digital Arts & 3D Editor, who suggested I use his apple as my very first test object with Reality Scan. The initial scanning process went relatively smoothly, as you can see in the video below, although I couldn’t figure out if I should lift the apple to scan the bottom (FYI – you shouldn’t do that).
It can be a little confusing when you first use Reality Scan to figure out if the color-coded images are properly synced together. I took over 150 images the first time I tried it. The next step was to let the model process in the app. Once it’s ready, you can export it to SketchFab (another free tool) to tinker with the model, download it, and share it with others. If you want download my appleYou can find it in my SketchFab profile.
If you’re familiar with 3D printing, you’ll know that the most commonly accepted file types for slicers are STL, GCODE, 3MF, or OBJ. Sketchfab wouldn’t allow me to export to any of these options, so I had to use an online conversion site to convert my downloaded GLB file to an STL file that I could use with my Anycubic slicer. I then scaled this to about the size of an apple using my slicer, exported it to a GCODE file, and sent it to my Anycubic Kobra 2.
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The 3D printed apple with furry skin (left) compared to the normal apple (right)(Image credit: Future)
(Image credit: Future)
(Image credit: Future)
(Image credit: Future)
(Image credit: Future)
(Image credit: Future)
As you can see from the results above, I was able to 3D print a full-scale apple using Epic Games’ Reality Scan app. As someone who has almost no experience creating a 3D model from scratch, this process was quick, easy, and produced a pretty good result.
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Is this the best 3D printed model of an apple? Of course not. But it is similar to the original apple we had in the office and for a first attempt I am blown away by the results. I also printed a second apple with the fuzzy skin effect to see if it looked more realistic, but I am not convinced that it does.
It would be great to see if a future update makes it possible to scan the bottom of an object by lifting or rotating it with the app, but for now I’m pretty happy with the melted-looking bottomless apple. If you want to try this out for yourself, download the Reality Scan app for free from the App Store, Galaxy Store, or Google Play Store.
