Photogrammetry 3d scanning - full body

[marekniall]

Hi All,
I have been looking at structured light scanning for sculpture purposes and the best scanner I have seen for this purpose is the Mephisto EX scanner, however this is around the the 50k British pound mark, (80K USD).
This has promptly to look at photogrammetry for scanning full body humans, currently looking at Photomodeler using multiple cameras. (High resolution Digital or firewire video cameras).

My questions are as follows:-
1. Does anybody have an experience of 360 degree full body human scanning using Photomodeler or other photogrammetry software packages.
2. Can one use multiple cameras (4 or more) to do this, i.e. have four angles of the subject (N, S, E W).
3. If this is possible, what sort of max point cloud resolution can I hope to attain. I am looking to CNC or robot arm mill high density expanded polythene for sculture and casting into other materials.

Appreciate your help,

Marek

[daconfusion]

I havent had time to get acquainted with the software fully.


If I am not mistaken, you have to use 1 camera, calibrate it using their supplied grid and then take multiple shots at set distances (360 degrees) to build your point cloud.


There are a few research papers that are posted on their site that can explain the cloud density you are interested in finding out. (Depending on camera MP rating, and etc)

Also they have a few case studies available that may answer your questions.

Lastly, if you are truly interested in buying or trying their software, send them an email, their sales/support seems motivated to help.

[mcphill]

I would look at the NextEngine scanner. It would take a few scans stitched together to capture a full body, but you will have far less investment in the hardware and ease of use will be high. If your subjects can sit stationary for 40 seconds per scan, a QuickScan should provide the data you need. I may have to try this out to get myself scanned in...

[mcphill]

FYI, here is a scan I did in about 3 minutes (three individual scans stitched):



I brought that data in to RapidWorks, and cleaned it up:



Then I saved it as an STL and opened it in BobCAD to generate toolpaths on it:







Ready to make MY face in about 15 minutes, on under $7000 in hardware and software COMBINED.

It took me WAY longer to take the screenshots, upload the files, and generate this post then it did to have GCode ready to cut my face after walking in the door this evening...

[mcphill]

And I finally got my backplot working, so here is a video of it being "machined":

2011-03-10_1756 - mcphill's library