MetaScan vs Nerfstudio

MetaScan creates 3D models of people and objects through a mobile app or an event scanning service. Its app offers object, full-body and head-and-shoulders capture using photogrammetry on modern iPhone or Android cameras, without requiring LiDAR. Scans can be viewed in augmented reality and exported as GLB, USDZ or OBJ; MetaScan also says they can be auto-rigged and animated for use in its multiplayer game In The Real World. Browser-based converters support GLB, OBJ, STL, glTF, PLY, FBX and USDZ, processing files on the user's device without uploading them. Event services include a scanning station, portrait studio and 360 spin video booth for occasions such as weddings, team days and corporate events. The free plan allows up to five scans in a library and one HD reconstruction per month. Pro costs $9.99 a month, Studio costs $29.99 a month, and an HD credit costs 4.99 USD once. MetaScan says person scans require consent and source images for standard scans are deleted automatically about two hours after model generation. It offers support by phone, text, email or website message.

Nerfstudio is a free, open-source API and toolkit for creating, training, and testing Neural Radiance Fields through modular components. Included methods are Nerfacto, Instant-NGP, NeRF, Mip-NeRF, TensoRF, and Splatfacto, its Gaussian Splatting implementation. Command-line tools process data, train and evaluate models, render videos, view trained scenes, and export models. A web viewer shows training in real time, lets users interact with scenes, renders custom camera trajectories, and creates videos. Share URLs allow others to watch progress, but those links are publicly accessible and can add latency. Documented capture workflows use COLMAP, Polycam, or Record3D to turn phone video into a 3D render. Installation is available through pip, source, or Docker. Docker requires NVIDIA GPU drivers supporting CUDA 11.8, and the quickstart requires an NVIDIA video card with CUDA installed. The project supports Tensorboard and Wandb logging, profiling, and debugging. It runs across Linux, Windows, web, API, and self-hosted environments, with Windows described as less tested and more fragile.