4 ms·

I'm curious if 3D scanners are cheaper/portable/widely available now ?

by laex 12y ago

rndn 12y ago
The cheapest way is possibly to take a lot of photos and create a 3D model using this program: http://ccwu.me/vsfm/ http://ccwu.me/vsfm/ It requires a lot of RAM though (on the order of 16 GB for most scenes).
- NamTaf 12y ago
  I've used a program called PhotoModeler [1] at work, which does the same thing. You use a consumer camera + a calibration chart to get the specifics about the lens setup on the camera, and then just take a whole heap of photos around the object in question. You add the photos to the program and it asks you to identify common points. This puts them all in 3d perspective and you set a dimension on a known length to scale it. For mapping large-scale machinery (train stuff) I've managed to get a ~5mm accuracy out of it. That's great when you don't have drawings. [1]: http://www.photomodeler.com/index.html http://www.photomodeler.com/index.html
  - violentvinyl 12y ago
    That would be really cool to play around with. Do you know if it does interiors as well? It doesn't look like it from the website.
- sp332 12y ago
  You could upload it to https://photosynth.net/preview https://photosynth.net/preview if you just want to play around. It doesn't require you to have a lot of RAM, but you can only view it on the Photosynth website and you can't really tweak anything.
ideonexus 12y ago
I've recently had some luck using an old Microsoft Kinect and their free library of scanning software: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/kinectforwindows/ https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/kinectforwindows/ You can get a Kinect V1 on ebay for less than $30, but you need a graphics card that fully supports DirectX 11 and a somewhat powerful machine to scan objects. Unfortunately, you can't scan small objects because the Kinect goes blind a less than a meter, but I have been able to scan people and print out recognizable busts of them. I don't know if the Kinect V2 is any better. Cubify has a portable handheld 3D scanner that looks like it might work well, but I can't afford the $400 to try it out: http://cubify.com/en/products/sense http://cubify.com/en/products/sense
- chowyuncat 12y ago
  Kinect V1 under Windows doesn't need DirectX 11. Only the Kinect V2 with official drivers does. There are OpenGL and CPU implementations for the V2 if you go with open source drivers.

I'm curious if 3D scanners are cheaper/portable/widely available now ?

by laex 12y ago

I'm curious if 3D scanners are cheaper/portable/widely available now ?

rndn 12y ago

The cheapest way is possibly to take a lot of photos and create a 3D model using this program: http://ccwu.me/vsfm/ http://ccwu.me/vsfm/ It requires a lot of RAM though (on the order of 16 GB for most scenes).

NamTaf 12y ago
I've used a program called PhotoModeler [1] at work, which does the same thing. You use a consumer camera + a calibration chart to get the specifics about the lens setup on the camera, and then just take a whole heap of photos around the object in question. You add the photos to the program and it asks you to identify common points. This puts them all in 3d perspective and you set a dimension on a known length to scale it. For mapping large-scale machinery (train stuff) I've managed to get a ~5mm accuracy out of it. That's great when you don't have drawings. [1]: http://www.photomodeler.com/index.html http://www.photomodeler.com/index.html
- violentvinyl 12y ago
  That would be really cool to play around with. Do you know if it does interiors as well? It doesn't look like it from the website.
sp332 12y ago
You could upload it to https://photosynth.net/preview https://photosynth.net/preview if you just want to play around. It doesn't require you to have a lot of RAM, but you can only view it on the Photosynth website and you can't really tweak anything.

ideonexus 12y ago

I've recently had some luck using an old Microsoft Kinect and their free library of scanning software: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/kinectforwindows/ https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/kinectforwindows/ You can get a Kinect V1 on ebay for less than $30, but you need a graphics card that fully supports DirectX 11 and a somewhat powerful machine to scan objects. Unfortunately, you can't scan small objects because the Kinect goes blind a less than a meter, but I have been able to scan people and print out recognizable busts of them. I don't know if the Kinect V2 is any better. Cubify has a portable handheld 3D scanner that looks like it might work well, but I can't afford the $400 to try it out: http://cubify.com/en/products/sense http://cubify.com/en/products/sense

chowyuncat 12y ago
Kinect V1 under Windows doesn't need DirectX 11. Only the Kinect V2 with official drivers does. There are OpenGL and CPU implementations for the V2 if you go with open source drivers.