Comments on: DAVID 3D Scanner Starter Kit Review

By: Jeffh

Jeffh — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 22:33:51 +0000

Forgive me if anyone has already mentioned this. I hadn't had time to read through all the responses. But I believe I read somewhere that there is a talk during Siggraph 2009 that will show you how to build your own.

By: julesd

julesd — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 07:52:29 +0000

I made a homebrew kit up for david scans a couple of years ago.

http://blog.global6.net/julesd/index.php?/categories/7-DAVID-scans

Essentially, a web cam, a cheap laser and a printed background will do the trick if you buy the right ones.

Hope this info helps.

By: Minifig

Minifig — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 14:10:14 +0000

Somebody made a 3D scanner out of LEGO's a while back… ;)

By: Sorbus

Sorbus — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 08:53:21 +0000

How about:

http://www.melog.ch/3dscan/

and

http://www.vision.caltech.edu/bouguetj/ICCV98/.index.html

Using a shadow instead of a laser makes things cheaper too!

By: LOGAN

LOGAN — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 21:41:47 +0000

I downloaded an older David Laserscanner app (from when it was still a free app) and used Open Source Meshlab to align/merge the models. But you always need a good laser, mine want that perfect.

Ill check out the other solutions that are mentioned here at a later time.

By: DeMoN

DeMoN — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 19:48:10 +0000

@Bart: The turntable you see in the pictures on my site was the second version laser scanner, since I started this project there have been 3 versions, the first was a fully automated and over-engineered box that ended up being too complicated to operate/synchronize even for me. The second method was the brightly colored turntable pedestal in the pictures which was intended to be trackable so that there would not be any need to calibrate the camera position, but on the software side it got annoyingly complex.

My current working version is almost ridiculously simple (and I feel stupid for not thinking of it first), a simple foamboard stage, like the one you used with the DAVID scanning system but simpler, and a fixed pivot to turn the laser horizontally (can also be made of foamboard), and a digital camera (not webcam). I have also been toying with a $10 black&Decker laser level that makes a line with a prism instead of a spinning mirror, and so far so good, it seems it will be really cheap and easy to use by all. However good results are currently based on alot of situation specific hacks, so until I make a stable piece of user friendly software to accompany the scanner, im keeping it in the closet, to avoid user support taking up development time.

By: KinzeroN

KinzeroN — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 19:26:01 +0000

@Bart: If you use OpenCV, you can callibrate the camera (i.e. find the x,y,z and the direction of the camera), and that"s why they use the pattern as background (that's the hard part but there are a lot of information on the net and even opensource libs if you are curious: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pose_(computer_vision) and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homography ). This principle is also used with the wiimote, to find its position (The wiimote is actually an infrared camera). The next step is estimating the laser plane intersection with the object, again, simple edge detection filter with some color/contrast filter can do the trick. Again from that, you'll get a cloud of points or line strips that you can stitch together. Anyway, this information is in case you want to learn the process behind it, not that complex, and any student can do it, if he is curious enough. Again, everything can be done with python, so yes, it's easy, far more easy than coding blender =)

By: Bart

Bart — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 18:31:31 +0000

@LoopyShane: thanks for the link, but they're still at 0.1 alpha – I don't think it's ready to be used yet?

@dan Boyle: ah, can you stitch scan data with MeshLab as well? That's pretty cool, I'll have to check that out, thanks!

@DeMoN: interesting, please do keep us informed! Will your solution require the turntable setup? That might be a bit hard to get/make for most of us..

@KinzeroN: eh, yeah. Making Blender is easy, too! You just need some time to program ;-) Way out of my league, I'm afraid.

@DMRadford: only the low-resolution version of the software without the stitching part is free, unfortunately.

By: DMRadford

DMRadford — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 18:26:35 +0000

DAVID Laserscanner IS free. If you already have a high quality web cam and a line laser laying around, (and a printer) its totally free.

By: KinzeroN

KinzeroN — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 17:41:19 +0000

In fact, it is easy to do that yourself, the resolution depends on two factors, the laser quality and the camera quality. You can do some software correction and mesh construction afterward. The mesh construction is probably the most difficult part, and there a lot of research going on to find the best approach. Anyway, if you are a geek all you need is a laser pointer, a webcam, OpenCV and time to program. Good luck!