The LEGO 3D Scanner
Slightly off-topic, but definitely cool enough to mention: Philippe Hurbain built his own 3D scanner using Lego Mindstorms :)
Philippe writes:I am a LDraw parts author, and as such I am always interested to find new ways to model LEGO parts. Many parts have a clear geometric structure and are relatively easy to create, but parts like the frog pictured above have no defined geometric shape and are very difficult to model. I toyed for a while with the idea of a 3D scanner… The solution came with 2008 LEGO Technic sets that include a new part, the linear actuator. These nifty device convert the rotation movement of a motor into a linear movement. Coupled with the high resolution of NXT encoder, I had all the elements to build a 3D scanner, precise enough for my purpose.
Read the rest of his story and check out some results on his website. The results are as good as you can expect by using toys for such an application, but it’s still verrrrry cool indeed!
really nice done!
Very cool!
about how much did the entire thing cost to make?
There is no end to what can be done with Legos, an overactive imagination, and too much spare time. (Kind of like blender ;-) Great work!
i’ve seen another lego 3d scanner a while ago which worked with non-transparent liquids like milk. i believe it was this one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XSrW-wAWZe4
Wow, I have got to try that with my NXT….
Probably a bit of credit should be given also to the Mesh Processing system that was used to assemble the scans and to produce the 3D model: http://meshlab.sourceforge.net
MeshLab is awesome. Cool blog, I’m going to enjoy using a few of your tricks for my mesh-cleaning work as Shapeways!
lego rocks, in fact whole compters should be build as lego blocks ,just click in a new processor block or graphic chip , Intel and lego a match made in heaven!
Excellent, now hook it up to Blender so that the result will be displayed in real-time :D