scanning people

[fred friendly]

Hello

I am looking for a scanner that will make an image into an stl file.

Does David work? http://www.david-laserscanner.com/ If so, is there a particular laser to use so the subject can have open eyes? What is the best set-up?

How about http://www.3d3solutions.com/ - That looks promising too.

I want to scan people in on location like a trade show - so the light in the arena or room should not effect the process... if at all possible.

Thanks,

Fred

[highspeedmazak]

Ok touchy subject 3d scanners I went to a rapid prototype show a few months ago and there I have seen many of these some could go as far as 2 microns but some are cheap if you are going to get one I would say dont buy until you see it work and I mean in front of you all of them shown their parts but what you dont see is any adjustments they have made to get it that way. I have seen some work great for a budget of over 20,000.00 and I have seen what they shown me of cheaper systems but they did not let you stick a part in front of it for yourself? Wonder why? Just be very carefull this is new you know what that means with products.

[Andre' B]

I just stumbled into this web site the other day, looks neat but I have not seen it working.
http://www.photomodeler.com/products/pm-scanner.htm

[Harryman]

I'd also advise caution when researching and buying scanning technology, send them a part and have it scanned so you can see what it's really capable of and how much post scanning work you can expect to put in.

Some of the photo based scanning systems don't pick up dark tones very well, or at all, which can be a slight problem if you're ever expecting to scan someone who isn't white and blonde. A slight deal killer you might say, so be forwarned.

[funcscan]

Pardon and hello,
I played with the played with the photomodeler that you are talking about. It was pretty clunky, kind of like something we would have used in high school (long time ago)

Kevan

[3DRevEng]

Someone had mentioned the 3d3solutions scanner I use it with my own scanning company and it is pretty good I even became their part time technician and scan most of their sample parts and am now a reseller!

It took me a few weeks to get the hand of it and getting data once you understand the cameras etc is great. But as with all scanners it is how to deal with the DATA that is a bugger!

Take a look my scan data using the 5MP system which I recommend as it is more versatile with the points it acquired. The more dense the point cloud the smaller the item and better alignment you get with the data.

feel free to email me if you have questions or need a part scanned.

Matthew
www.3dreveng.com

[fergusda]

I will second 3D3 Solutions. I stumbled into structured light scanning while using David-Scanner, and realized it was the way to go.

Our custom built scanner uses the 3D3 Solutions software, and knocks the pants off just about every commercial scanner out there, in terms of quality, accuracy speed and versatility. Oh, and don't forget cost. Those $50,000 commercial scanners out there have about $1000 worth of parts, and $49,000 worth of marketing.

I just scanned a 1/4" sawtooth and then scanned an entire motorcycle with the same hardware. Good luck pulling that off with another scanner.

As for scanning people, it works fantastic. Set it up right and it captures an entire face (or body) in <1s; laser scanners are simply too slow to make good full body scans. You can scan faces in indoor ambient light, but may want a shade canopy for full larger body captures, depending on the power of the projector (more light/lumens is always better).

-Dan
Global Inspection Solutions
www.globalinspectionsolutions.com

[vinot]

Hello again,

to scan objects with movement time is a factor. For my experience laser systems are slow: maybe with a high fps and high resolution cam in a very controlled light ambient could achive decent results, but life is not perfect.

In these cases I use photogrammetry (Photomodeler), wich in any case it supose to make your own solution. Actually I use several syncronized cams to capture a real point cloud of markers. In this way I scan parts of live animals with good results at outdoor.

Dan, I never played with structured light from projectors, but I supose that system needs some time to capture while structured light line reads the area, isn't it? I these case, how much time? Can you send me any example?

And referring Photomodeler I can say that learning could be a little hard, but after that you can get a high end result. I doesn't tried yet the scanning module, but it seems fantastic.

On the other hand, please keep an eye to "Kinetic" tof camera that microsoft is going to launch next month. 1 cm of error while several fps (30? 50?) at closed range... this is going to shock.

toni

[fergusda]

My current structured light scanner requires 8-12 camera frames to capture an image; it takes a little less than a second to capture an image depending on the resolution. It can't capture live motion, but it will capture faces and people in a fixed or relaxed position.

There are structured light scanners that capture 3D in 3 or even 1 camera frame, and have better potential for people and animals. I'm watching the Artec scanner since it can capture live 3D video at 15 frames/sec.

[fergusda]

Most 3D scanners use a digital video camera to capture data. Typical video capture rate is 5-30 frames per second depending on the camera, image resolutions, etc.

My current setup takes 12 camera frames to capture an image. I can capture a 3D surface in a little less than a second. It's plenty fast for faces and full body capture, assuming the subject stays still. It isn't fast enough for motion capture, however.

There are structured light scanners that capture in 3 frames (see Three Phase scanners) and Artec appears to have a scanner that captures in one frame and is capable of real time motion. I would love to get my hands on one of those, but I don't really have the need for real time scanning.

-Dan
Bluegalaxy Design
www.bluegalaxydesign.com

[Khalid]

I have some funky old hardware for the David Laser Scanner... I did many scan with good accuracies but the scanning setup was heavy and mobility was an issue... So i did work on following points to improve the setup:
1- It can easily perform the scanning without calibration panel.
2- It can be easily disassembled and assembled in new location.
3-Compact in size for transportation
4- Aesthetically look beautiful
5- Electronics have all the control features
6- The complete setup is light weight.
7- Accurate and reliable

After, considering all above and lot more i was able to DIY the hardware and made the first test scan.. Attached are the pictures of my improved Hardware.. Attached you can see the scan of spray bottle .. Total 9 scans , each scan cycle took 2minutes.. Approximate height of the spray bottle is 250mm and 80mm in diameter...The alignment and stitching was a difficult part due to symmetry in the model.. However, i learn a lot in stitching the scans... further scans can be seen at:

www.my-woodcarving.blogspot.com

[fergusda]

Good work, Khalid! I too built an automatic scanner using David-Scanner, which made it much faster and had better results.

I struggled with mesh aligning as well. I found two free software tools that helped quite a bit:

1) Meshlab: Has global alignment and mesh merging tools that can handle lots of scans. It aligns very well, but crashes a little too often. I use David-Scanner to roughly align the meshes, and output to Meshlab to make a much-much tighter alignment using a global averaging alignment. David-Scanner doesn't align meshes nearly as well.

2) Scanalyze: This was a free tool, but very difficult to get set up and working properly. It does have a lot of power for aligning meshes, especially lots of them (24+).


I ended up purchasing a license of Leios Mesh, which was very expensive, but the lowest cost mesh/alignment/merging tool that I liked to work with. It makes aligning and merging very easy, and gets excellent results. Polyworks, RapidForm and Geomagic also work very well, but they are incredibly expensive.

-Dan