Comparing 3D imaging platforms for cosmetic consultations: Crisalix, Vectra, and Arbrea

Three-dimensional imaging has become a routine part of the aesthetic consultation. Patients arrive expecting to see a simulated outcome; clinics that cannot provide one increasingly lose the consultation.

This review compares the three platforms most commonly deployed in cosmetic practice today — Crisalix, Canfield Vectra, and Arbrea — across six dimensions: simulation accuracy, hardware requirements, EHR and practice-management integration, pricing transparency, clinical evidence, and patient communication tooling.

No vendor was given advance access to this review, and none pays for placement on Future Chronicle. Our full methodology is published at /editorial-standards.

Simulation accuracy is the dimension patients care about most and the one hardest to evaluate objectively. Crisalix relies on browser-based photogrammetry from three smartphone photographs; Vectra uses dedicated stereophotogrammetry hardware; Arbrea combines a tablet-based capture flow with proprietary morphable models. In our structured comparison, Vectra produced the most anatomically faithful simulations for breast augmentation and rhinoplasty. Crisalix and Arbrea were competitive for facial procedures where the delta from baseline is smaller.

Integration is where the gap widens. Vectra's hardware dependency is a barrier for smaller clinics; Crisalix's browser-native model is the easiest to deploy but places a heavier burden on internet connectivity during consultations. Arbrea sits in the middle.

Pricing transparency remains poor across the category. None of the three vendors publishes standard rate cards. Clinics we spoke with reported first-year total costs ranging from £6,000 to £42,000 depending on hardware, licenses, and support tier.

Clinical evidence is thin. A PubMed search returns fewer than twenty peer-reviewed studies evaluating patient satisfaction or clinical decision-making impact for any of the three platforms combined. This is a category-wide problem, not a vendor-specific one.

For clinics evaluating a first purchase, our recommendation is to prioritise the platform that best matches the procedure mix. High-volume breast and body clinics should evaluate Vectra first; predominantly facial and injectables practices should shortlist Crisalix and Arbrea and pilot both.