About

AUTO3DSRE is a library of real results from real 3D scanners, written up by the people who made them. Every project is an automotive part captured with a 3D scanner, converted into usable digital geometry, and sometimes taken all the way to a manufactured replacement. It was born from the Automotive 3D Scanning & Reverse Engineering community.

Why it exists

Anyone shopping for a 3D scanner runs into the same problem: spec sheets, marketing renders, and demo scans of clean, matte test objects. What is hard to find is an honest answer to "what does this scanner model actually deliver on a real car part?"

That is what this site is for. Each project lists the scanner and the software used, along with the raw scan, the cleanup, the CAD work, and often the finished part. Shiny, dark, large, or awkward parts are exactly the ones people ask about, and they are the ones you will find here.

The second reason is the parts themselves. Many are discontinued, damaged, or no longer available. 3D scanning and reverse engineering give another option besides scrapyards and back-ordered stock: preserve, recreate, improve, or reproduce the part digitally.

Find results for a specific scanner

Deciding which scanner to buy, or which tools to learn? Browse the projects and filter by scanner model or software to see what people actually get on real automotive work, from the person who did it.

Real projects, documented

This is a showcase, not a file dump. A project may cover different stages of the process: raw scan data, mesh cleanup, CAD modelling, measurements, prototypes, or the final manufactured part.

Community and credit

Anyone with an account can submit a project, and an admin reviews every post before it goes live, which keeps the archive trustworthy. Every project credits its author: click an author's name to see more of their work.

The community started in the Automotive 3D Scanning & Reverse Engineering Facebook group, which remains the place for open discussion. Learn more about the community.