Comments on: Head First into 3D Scanning

By: amackie

amackie — Fri, 08 Apr 2011 01:23:35 +0000

Nice job, great writeup!

By: Chris Bruner

Chris Bruner — Mon, 04 Apr 2011 16:54:26 +0000

I’ve got a turntable, the platen spins freely, no motor attached. I was originally going to use it for magnet fun, but have lost interest. Look at the top of my bin to see it.

It also has a hinged cover, which I think might work for a enclosure. Maybe replace the cover with something larger, or modify it (make a hole in the top and and sides and ceiling).

Very interesting project.

By: Ben Brown

Ben Brown — Mon, 04 Apr 2011 02:16:28 +0000

Sounds like a plan! I’m going to get materials together for a proper enclosure tomorrow. Once we have finite measurements of camera distance, turntable and laser scan angles, we can try automating the bulk of the Shape Fusion process as well.

By: karlw

karlw — Mon, 04 Apr 2011 01:40:23 +0000

I’m thinking we should build an enclosed box to eliminate any ambient light. Inside the box we can have a stepper controlled turntable and a stepper controlled device to scan the laser over the object. I’ve got the PIC microcontroller code and VB.net code figured out for using USB so I’ll write an app to control the whole thing. What do you think?

By: DW

DW — Mon, 04 Apr 2011 01:15:06 +0000

Ben, that just *rocks*, dude! Well done.

By: Ben Brown

Ben Brown — Mon, 04 Apr 2011 00:09:19 +0000

There’s one called grape3D that uses a spinning turntable to take a vertical laser-scan movie of the object (one rotation), then run it through a post-processor that generates a 3D shape. I haven’t had a chance to try it because we need the turntable.

After some more experimentation with DAVID today, we’ll need an enclosed scan area, not just to shield the laser but to control ambient light. Shadows and daylight changes were affecting the scans as I was doing them today. We just need to fudge with the camera/laser settings.

By: karlw

karlw — Sun, 03 Apr 2011 21:42:23 +0000

Are there any good 3D scanning freeware/open source apps out there?
If not I’ll pitch in to pay for the licence for the david scan software.

By: karlw

karlw — Sun, 03 Apr 2011 14:56:32 +0000

Ben, Nice work on the first experiment! It’s going to be fun automating the process.

By: jlamothe

jlamothe — Sun, 03 Apr 2011 12:44:39 +0000

Crippleware is one of the main reasons I stick with Free Software wherever I can… but I guess around Kwartzlab, I’m preaching to the choir.

The DRM on a lot of commercial stuff aggravates me to no end.