Revopoint Miraco Review: My Favorite 3D Scanner Right Now

I’ve spent the last few weeks using the Revopoint Miraco 3D scanner on a variety of tasks, and honestly, it’s my favorite 3D scanner right now. 

Before, using my other scanners like the POP 3, or MINI 2, it always felt restrictive having to connect them to a laptop, and they also just felt more fragile.

Now with the standalone Miraco that functions as basically it’s own 16GB RAM computer, you can truly use it as a handheld 3D scanner without being tethered to a laptop or computer, which gives you more freedom, and just feels so much better.

It does mean you can run into framerate issues in some cases, but I’ll get into that. It’s most comparable to the Einstar 3D scanner, which requires a connection to a computer to run, but is considered one of the best 3D scanners in that $1,000-ish price range. I’ve also included a section comparing it directly with that, and my recommendation.

My Quick Summary: Should You Buy the Revopoint Miraco?

Overall, I think the Revopoint Miraco is the best 3D scanner out right now in its price range. I give it a solid 4 out of 5 stars, based on that its great accuracy, completely standalone usage so you don’t need a laptop connected, and for the editing suite built into it.

It feels more like a point-and-shoot 3D camera, whereas previous 3D scanners I’ve reviewed for 3DSourced felt more cumbersome. It’s a really nice experience to use, and I find myself using it a lot more than the MINI, even for smaller models, just because it’s easier to use.

Revopoint MIRACO 3D Scanner

Specs

Technology: Quad-camera Infrared Structured Light

Scanning Speed: up to 15 fps

Screen: 6” 2k AMOLED Touch Screen

Connector Type: USB Type-C

Compatible Systems: Windows 10/11, macOS

Revopoint here

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Pros and Cons

Pros:

• Very versatile: with Near and Far modes you can optimize your scans for smaller miniatures, as well as larger scans of car accessories (or entire cars).
• High quality captures: I can see the difference in quality between the Miraco and the POP 3, which was previously their generalist 3D scanner, with sharper details caught.
• Doesn’t require a connection to a laptop: this is the biggest advantage for me. Not only does it mean more freedom when using it at home, but it also means I can bring this to any event and scan people’s faces, or bring to a practical job, for example for scanning a car interior, without having to connect it to anything. It’s very easy to transfer the models via WiFi or USB after.
• Charges quickly: you can get to around 85% in just 30 minutes, which is really handy if you’re often on the go and need to charge quickly.
• Pause and Undo modes really help with getting good scans: you can pause your scan whenever you want, and the Undo button lets you remove the last few frames and go backwards if you do ever get any bad data in your scan. Then simply press continue and resume scanning without any of this noise in your scan.

Cons:

• Arguably tries to do too much by putting 2 scanners in 1. The MINI 2 could be better for solely miniature scanning, while the RANGE can do a similarly good job for larger models. I actually disagree with this and enjoy the versatility, but I did still want to mention this. The Miraco is a lot cheaper than buying the RANGE 2 and MINI 2 individually, so it’s a better bundle deal overall.
• Expensive compared to other Revopoint scanners. However, for the specs and performance and what it allows you to do, it is excellent. But for basic miniature scanning, the MINI 2 you can get this for around $500 cheaper.
• Awkwardly placed power button. It’s not clearly marked as the power button, and also being on the side it’s easy to accidentally hit it. Very minor, but worth noting anyway.

Setup 

Setup was quick once I had charged the Miraco (it says to charge to at least 60% before use, but I charged it to 100% anyway). 

You’re asked to connect to WiFi so you can wirelessly transmit scans, your language, and date and time, before you’re ready to scan your first model.

Usually the screw-in is just for mounting for stationary scanning with the turntable. But because this isn’t tethered to a laptop, you can instead screw in a leather holding strap that goes around your wrists, giving you better control over the scanner in handheld mode.

You get the turntable, handheld leather strap, a variety of surfaces and 

My Hands-On Testing

Here’s a few of the 3D scans I tried out:

Statue

First I scanned the statue model that came with the Miraco in the box. I scanned it from two angles to get the undersides of it to then combine them in post-processing.

Plant pot

I first tested the Miraco on some flowers in a pot, as they had some pretty delicate features. It handled the more delicate flower features really well, but the color of the plant pot made it difficult to scan the pot.

Shoe

I then tested a white sneaker shoe to see how it picked up details for shoe design. I used a white Nike Air Force One trainer, and wanted to see how well it picked up the details, such as the Nike tick, the “Air” sign on the side, and the red Supreme logo on the side of the leather in the texture.

It didn’t really pick up the rectangle Supreme logo seen above in the mesh, but did a good job on most of the stitching, as well as the “Air” part.

I also tried a few shiny necklaces and rings, as well as some darker models, and while generally I think the Miraco picks up darker colors better than previous Revopoint scanners, it still can’t pick up black colors. You will still need to use a special matte spray to make these surfaces readable by the 3D scanner.

Also, one other model that isn’t in this article had a rose gold plant pot, which the Miraco could not pick up. So along with typical shiny silver, it can’t pick up less shiny rose gold either – this would still require the spray.

Features

For a quick overview of the specs, here they are:

• The actual 3D scanner lets you preview what you’re scanning with the 2K OLED touchscreen that’s 6 inches wide.
• Has a 48MP RGB camera with two sets of depth cameras for Near and Far modes, with 8K color capture for the textures.
• Revopoint claims up to 0.02mm precision, and up to 0.05mm accuracy
• It’s a 8-core 2.4Ghz computer, with USB connectivity and WiFi, and 16GB RAM and a 256GB hard drive. There’s also a 32GB RAM “Pro” version for $300 more.
• It costs around $1,300, but is often on sale for less.
• It weights around 750 grams
• Fully charged, it lasts around 2 hours, and charges to over 80% in 30 minutes.
• Two capture options: Continuous, where it captures constantly, or Single Shot mode, which captures via single shots.
• You can pause scans during progress and restart at another part of your model, for example if you want to re-start it when the turntable has shown a new side of your model. There’s also an “Undo” button to undo the last few frames of scanning which is extremely helpful if you get some erroneous data in your scan and want to remove it before continuing the scan again.
• There’s a setting for removing the surface the object sits on, such as stand used to prop your item up, or the desk the turntable sits on.
• The screen also can be pulled up, so you can scan your own face and see the progress in what Revopoint call “Selfie Mode”, which is useful. 

Software

There is built-in software within the Revopoint Miraco, so you can make basic edits on the device itself, for example the one-tap editing to turn the point cloud into a final scan. 

It basically runs a version of Revo Scan locally, so you get a lot of the same features for more precise editing as well, particuarly for projects where the one-click edit isn’t accurate enough for sharp details.

Then for any more detailed edits, there’s the Revo Studio software for Windows and Mac. You can get rid of noise in the background, fill in gaps, and generally you have much more control with Revo Scan than on the handheld Miraco scanner itself. 

Revo Scan can algo merge multiple scans together, for example if you’re scanning a trophy or a statue, and want to scan the model, and then turn it on its side to scan the base, you can then merge these together in Revo Scan for a complete 3D model.

But, I just want to also say that you shouldn’t really expect perfection in any 3D scan – no matter how good your scan data. For truly accurate reverse-engineering-level scans, you’ll need to do editing in post with specialist 3D software, though the Miraco gets you a lot closer to this level than most other 3D scanners, and certainly does a better job than anything else in the price range or cheaper.

Comparisons with the Einstar

Fully all-in-one and self-contained scanner. Doesn’t require a link to a laptop etc.

Doesn’t require a laptop connection, whereas the Einstar does

This is an advantage over the Einscan, which needs to be plugged into a laptop, and has pretty high requirements for it to run smoothly:

Since the actual computer is built into the Miraco, you don’t need a powerful computer to keep up with the scanning process. Many users do not have the 32GB RAM computer recommended for running the Einstar at a decent FPS, so the Miraco is great if you’re one of those people.

However, the Miraco’s 16GB RAM can lose frame rate sometimes

The Pro version is probably more stable and faster with its 32GB RAM, but sometimes the FPS could fall to below 10FPS when scanning with the Miraco. If you have a powerful computer to run the Einstar, it is probably going to be faster, and possibly more accurate, in some situations.

The Miraco can be used with Windows or Mac. The Einstar is not currently compatible with Mac

While Einstar say they are releasing a Mac compatible software soon, I could not use the Einstar currently as a Mac user, as it is only built for Windows currently. 

There are no such problems with the Miraco, which worked seamlessly with my Macbook.

Neither of them are industrial-level high-fidely, reverse-engineering 3D scanners. You still need to pay $10K+ for this.

While high-quality, neither the Revopoint Miraco or the Einstar are going to get you super high-fidelity scans for industry level reverse engineering. 

And for under $1,500 you shouldn’t expect that, ethier.

In fact, add a 0 to that ($15,000) and you get the realistic price of something like an Artec Eva scanner that has the quality for these types of scans. 

But for all other less industrial scans, the Miraco is probably the best out there for hobbyist and semi-pro scanning.

Third-Party Reviews

I don’t want to make my recommendation without mentioning what some other experts have mentioned online in their reviews, and give you a balanced recommendation. So, here are some other experts who both disagree and agree with my recommendations:

1. Superfastmatt

Prefers the Einstar overall, though this was before a lot of the new firmware updates that have improved the Miraco since this video was published. 

However, some others, such as @ispanico97 in the comments, disagree. I’ve also added some other comments from owners of these that were useful to understand.

2. PopularImagination

This review was very interesting, as it compared the Canon R5’s photogrammetry against the Revopoint Miraco’s 3D scanning.

Using the Revopoint Miraco, PopularImagination managed to get incredible detail on a scan of a Van’s sneaker. I have attached a screenshot below:

And PopularImagination found the mesh quality was better on the Miraco than the Canon R5. However, he found the Canon’s texture quality in the stitching and other areas of the shoe came out better than on the Canon, once the colors and textures were applied.

So, for a 3D scan, the Miraco is definitely the better choice. But for advanced 3D modeling, 3D animation, and rendering, especially in color, the Canon R5 came out better.

3. Artisans of Vaul

Found that while even small models have excellent definition up close, the Revopoint MINI 2 does slightly outperform it in detailed pieces. While obviously the Miraco is far more versatile and can do entire motorbike or car models as well, this is interesting to note, as if you are only interested in very small models, the MINI 2 might be the better choice for you.

I’ve taken a screenshot from this excellent review, and you can see the MINI 2 on the left has slightly sharper details on this model than the Miraco scan on the right.

However, Artisans of Vaul did find that the Miraco’s 3D model had fewer grainy errors than the MINI 2’s scan, which is a plus for the Miraco.