The engine
The engine behind our services. We wrote our own reader for FARO .fls files instead of licensing one, so conversions run on our machines without SCENE and without Windows. This page lists what it has been tested on, how close it comes to SCENE, and what it cannot do yet.
Albireo is the double star at the head of the Swan.
16 scans in our reference tests.
| Scanner | File | iQLib | Scans |
|---|---|---|---|
| Focus3D X 330 | Raw project folder | 5.2.4 | 6 |
| Focus3D X 130 HDR | Raw project folder | 5.2.4 | 2 |
| Focus3D 120 | Raw project folder | 4.8.1 | 2 |
| Focus3D S 120 | Processed in SCENE | 5.0.0 | 3 |
| Focus3D X 130 | Processed in SCENE | 7.5.0 | 3 |
Three further scans were measured in separate reports. Two more files load but cannot be checked, because SCENE LT will not open them to give us a reference.
Point by point, on points present in both outputs.
For every scan we compare Albireo's XYZ output with the PTX export that SCENE LT wrote from the same file. More than 180 million shared points have been compared this way.
| Scanner | Within 2 mm | Median difference |
|---|---|---|
| Focus3D X 330 | 100 % | 0.005 mm |
| Focus3D X 130 HDR | 99.9896 to 100 % | 0.09 to 0.20 mm |
| Focus3D 120 | 100 % | 0.054 mm |
| Focus3D S 120 | 100 % | 0.005 mm |
| Focus3D X 130 | 100 % | 0.005 mm |
PTX stores coordinates to 0.01 mm, so a 0.005 mm median is as close as the comparison can show.
Identical to SCENE on the tested X 330 scans; 99.97 % identical on a held-out reference scan.
Identical to SCENE's coloured PTX on the X 130 scans.
Read back with libE57Format with zero difference on a test sample.
A 268 MB scan reads in about 30 seconds on a Mac, with 3.1 GB peak memory.
What Albireo cannot do yet.
For raw scans of one file family (DataMode 34), millimetre accuracy assumes the scanner's angular zero point is known from an existing SCENE export. Estimating it without one is not solved yet, and a wrong estimate can shift distant points by centimetres. This is why we tell you before delivering if a scan needs a reference we do not have.
By default Albireo does not filter points. SCENE's default export does, so our files hold 1.4 to 29.6 % more points, including stray returns in the sky. An optional approximation of SCENE's filter disagrees with SCENE on 0.4 to 2.5 % of points on scans it was not tuned on.
Five Focus3D models and about twenty files so far. Other scanner models, other brands and other iQLib versions have not been tested.
E57 files were read back with one independent library. Opening them in CloudCompare or SCENE has not been tested. Colour was verified on the X 130 scans only, and the scanner position is not written into the files.
Scans are not stitched together. Each scan comes back as its own file.
Free conversion of your FARO .fls files. A link and an email address are enough to start.