The Maker’s Toolbox: Creality Sermoon P1 3D Scanner

Just a few years ago, I was ready to write off consumer 3D scanning entirely, because the experience was always so frustrating and the results were so poor. But the technology advanced very quickly and the Creality Raptor Pro showed me that 3D scanning can actually work well. Now, Creality is back with their most advanced model yet: the Sermoon P1. I’ve spent the past several weeks testing it to find out if it meets my new standards.

The idea

The Creality Sermoon P1 product concept is actually very simple. It is like a Raptor Pro (or, more accurately, a Sermoon S1) attached to an Android tablet.

That idea may be simple, but it is also very powerful. The Raptor Pro was already great at 3D scanning and its major shortcoming was the USB cable tether. Having to remain within a few feet of a PC is a serious constraint. By slapping similar hardware onto a tablet, Creality made the Sermoon P1 a standalone device that is much more convenient and versatile.

Creality’s Scan Bridge accessory has made untethered, wireless 3D scanning possible in the past. But that necessitated the purchase of the Scan Bridge itself and the attachment of a suitable smartphone. To put it bluntly, the arrangement was clunky.

The Sermoon P1 streamlines the whole thing by putting everything in a single self-contained device.

The specs

With that concept in mind, it becomes obvious that there are actually two separate sets of specifications we need to consider. First, we have the specifications related to the 3D scanning hardware. Second, we have the specifications related to the Android tablet that runs the scanning and meshing software.

Starting with the 3D scanning hardware, the Sermoon P1 is capable of both blue laser scanning and infrared scanning. Breaking that down further, it can do 22 crossed blue line scanning, 7 parallel blue line scanning, single blue line scanning, close-range infrared scanning, and long-range infrared scanning.

The stated scanning accuracy for the blue laser is 0.02mm and its 3D resolution is 0.05-2mm. For the infrared scanning, those numbers are 0.075mm and 0.1-2mm. The standalone scanning speed is 60fps for the blue laser and 15fps for the infrared light.

The device as a whole weighs 830g. It is an Android-based system equipped with an 8-core 3.36GHz Qualcomm CPU and an Adreno 740 GPU. It has 24GB of LPDDR5X RAM and 256GB of built-in storage.

It comes with a 6” touchscreen and an interchangeable 3300mAh battery system. The Sermoon P1 ships with two batteries and each has a USB-C port, so you can always keep one charging while you use the other. It also comes with a 65W PD-enabled fast charger.

That is a lot of information to absorb, so I’ll put it in straightforward terms: the Sermoon P1 is a very powerful Android tablet with 3D scanning hardware that can handle both blue laser (marker-tracked) scanning and infrared (multiple tracking methods) scanning.

Tracking and markers

I just mentioned markers and they’re worth discussing in more depth.

When you’re scanning an object, the scanner needs some way to determine where newly detected geometry exists in space relative to the geometry is has already scanned. There are multiple ways to do that, each with advantages and disadvantages.

The method typically used for infrared scanning and which is very common among budget 3D scanners relies on the geometry within view. To add new geometry, it has to be able to see already-scanned geometry at the same time. That results in frequent tracking loss and it struggles with very regular objects that don’t have many distinct features.

Imagine a long steel rod, for example. One end looks exactly like the other end. It looks the same from any orientation and at all points along its length. With nothing distinct to latch onto, the 3D scanning algorithm gets confused and can’t make sense of what it detects, resulting in failure.

That is the kind of 3D scanning I was referring to in the first sentence of this article.

Tracking markers completely solve those problems. You attach markers to the object you want to scan and the scanner tracks those. As long as you attach enough of them and don’t arrange them in some kind of super consistent pattern, the scanner will work reliably and won’t lose tracking.

The downside, of course, is that you need to attach the markers (or scan on a table covered in markers). The markers usually come as stickers, so placing them and then removing them is a pain.

The extra work is worth it, in my opinion.

Software and workflows

When I said the Sermoon P1 is a standalone device, I meant it. You can do everything, including meshing, right there on the tablet. You can also offload any step of the process to a PC if you want.

If you’ve ever used a Creality 3D scanner before, you’ve used their CrealityScan (previously CR-Scan) software. Some other 3D scanner manufacturers also use the same underlying software, reskinned and rebranded.

That is also what runs on the Sermoon P1, with some minor adjustments to make it more friendly to a touch interface.

The workflow goes something like this: perform several scans from different angles, manually remove noise and unwanted geometry from those scans, perform a “fusion” operation to do basic processing of the point clouds, align the scans (automatically or manually), and then let the software turn it all into a complete mesh model for export.

You can do all of that on the Sermoon P1 without ever even turning on your computer. Or, you can connect the Sermoon P1 to your computer (via USB or Wi-Fi) to use the scanning hardware directly in CR Scan. You can also transfer scans from the Sermoon P1 to your PC, if you’d rather process them there — potentially with faster processing.

My workflow

Because I almost exclusively use the blue lasers, I have developed a workflow that I think is efficient and effective. My goal is usually to prioritize accurate geometry to use as a reference in CAD.

Attaching tracking markers is a pain, so I avoid it altogether when I can. If the object I’m scanning is small enough, I place it on a special turntable built for me by Yuriy of Laser 3D CNC. It is like a big lazy Susan covered in markers and as long as several of those markers stay in view, the scanner can maintain tracking.

If I can’t use the turntable or if not enough markers remain in view, I will attach marker stickers (or magnetic markers).

Next, I perform as many scans as necessary to get complete coverage, each starting with a “global marker scan.” That detects the locations of the markers before scanning geometry, so tracking is smoother during scanning.

I use a mix of the crossed lasers, parallel lasers, and single line laser. Crossed lasers are good for high coverage. The single line laser is good for small details (particularly holes and crevices). The parallel lasers are somewhere in-between and good for generally filling in detail.

Once I have all of the scans I need, I then clean them up by selecting and deleting everything that isn’t the scanned object (like the table and stray noise). After that, the fusion operation processes the point clouds.

With the fusion step done, I can align the scans. I first attempt automatic alignment. If that fails, I perform manual alignment between pairs of scans. I do that by adding reference points to distinct geometric features that scanned cleanly.

When all of the scans are aligned, I start the meshing process. If the resulting mesh looks good, I export. Otherwise, I edit the scans or tweak the meshing settings, then try again.

Performance and results

Now that you know how I use the Sermoon P1, I can tell you about my opinions on its performance and results.

In my testing, I found that it was roughly on par with the Raptor Pro. That is to say that it is very good. Under optimal scanning conditions, it was reliable, consistent, fast, and accurate.

I was also impressed with the performance of the system. It never felt laggy or slow. Fusion processing and meshing both take some time (usually a few minutes) — just like they do on a PC — but everything else is snappy.

I wasn’t sure that that would be the case, because we’re talking about a lot of data. Even on my powerful PC, the Creality Scan software eats up a lot of resources. So, I thought a tablet might struggle. But it really didn’t. I never felt like the Sermoon P1 was underpowered for the task.

I also had concerns about the touch interface and how it might hinder editing tasks. But that didn’t turn out to be a problem, either. It might be slightly less efficient than working with a mouse, keyboard, and large monitor, but not so much that it becomes a frustration.

Issues

Under ideal conditions, everything worked well. However, I did still encounter some issues in certain situations.

As I’ve made clear, I’m a big fan of blue laser scanning with markers. But I did still spend some time trying infrared scanning. If the conditions are perfect and the object is suitable, it can work pretty well. But “suitable” means either lots of distinct geometric features, or lots of distinct color or graphical elements. In real world use, I’ve found that both of those can actually be pretty rare. So, I’m still not a big fan of infrared scanning.

Note: I believe that infrared scanning with marker tracking will become available as a software update. The menu option is there, but I was unable to select it. Once that is an option, I think it will make infrared scanning far more useful.

I found color mapping to be difficult, too. With blue laser scanning, that works by capturing pictures during the global marker scan, which are then used as textures after meshing. When it gets good photos from the right angles, the results are good. But that doesn’t always happen and you don’t know until you get past the meshing step.

I really wish there was a way to review the color mapping results in real-time, so you can keep scanning until you’re sure you have everything in good quality.

Though I should say that color mapping works better with infrared scanning, because it captures color information alongside geometry. It still isn’t perfect, but it is better.

Luckily, color mapping isn’t a priority for the work I do. My goal is to get good meshes that I can use in CAD, so colors are irrelevant to me. It might, however, be important to you.

Finally, lighting conditions can also affect scanning and tracking. In bright light — especially sunlight — you have to be very careful to get the exposure and laser brightness right. Even then, you might not get good scans if the lighting is particularly harsh.

For example, I wanted to scan the fender of on my work truck. It is missing an emblem and I’d like to 3D print something to put in that spot. A good 3D scan would help with that, but I was unable to scan the bottom portion of the fender. The Sermoon P1 simply couldn’t “see” that part of the surface under the harsh Phoenix sun — even after I put up an umbrella to provide shade.

This should only be a real problem if you plan to scan outdoors in the sunlight. But you may want to do that, so it is worth considering.

The competition

The Creality Sermoon P1 is not the only self-contained 3D scanner on the market. In my research, I came across three other models that seem like potential competitors: the Revopoint MIRACO Plus ($2,199), the EINSTAR VEGA ($1,599), and the 3DMakerpro Toucan ($1,399).

All three of those cost significantly less than the Sermoon P1 and that raises the obvious question: is the Sermoon P1 better?

The only honest answer I can give you is that I don’t know, because I haven’t tested any of those.

It is also impossible to compare them directly, as they have different scanning technology. The EINSTAR VEGA and Reveopoint MIRACO Plus don’t have blue laser lines at all — just infrared (though marker tracking is an option). The 3DMakerpro Toucan is only a blue laser scanner.

I can’t tell you how the Sermoon P1 stacks up against that competition, other than that it features both infrared and blue laser scanning. But I can tell you that it is compelling and versatile.

Conclusions

I like the Creality Sermoon P1 a lot. If price wasn’t a factor, I would recommend it without hesitation.

However, it currently costs $2,999 and that is a lot of money. Not necessarily an unreasonable amount of money, but definitely a lot. It is at the high end of the consumer market, which means you need to be able to justify its cost.

With that in mind, I will say that you should first consider if you even need a self-contained 3D scanner in the first place. If you only need to scan small things and can work close to your computer, then you probably don’t.

Assuming you want to scan large things or want to work untethered to a computer, then a self-contained 3D scanner is a good choice.

From there, you’ll want to consider your goals. Do you care about color mapping? If so, you’ll probably want infrared as an option. If accurate mesh geometry is important to you, then you’ll probably want blue lasers. If you see yourself using both, then the Creality Sermoon P1 might be the best choice.