DIY 3D scanner

Okay While searching online I found a way to do 3D will a web cam and laser.

Here is the link to the files.

http://www.datapodcomputer.com/3D_scanner.zip

All You need is a web cam, a computer running windows, a glass rod, or wine glass, and a red or green laser pointer.

Step One: Take a card board box and cut off two of the sides so all you have left is the bottom, and two sides next to each other.

Step Two: Line The box with white paper.

Step Three: Open the 3D_scanner folder and open your Calibpoints_Scale*.pdf and print it out.

Step Four: Put it on you box so the two small donuts right next to each other are positioned on the bottem right of the box. Then attach the other sheet with the donuts on the out side.

Step Five: Open DAVID-Laserscanner.exe, pick your camera on the drop down list, select your scale, and click Calibrate camera. Now hit next.

Step Six: Place your item in the box.

Step Seven: Mount you glass rod/wine glass,and shine your laser through it so there is a horizontal line.

Step Eight: Now click start, and slowly move your laser down, and up the item.

Step Nine: Your almost done. Grab the texture from your item

Step Ten: View your 3D model.

Here is the web site with all of the equipment [www.david-laserscanner.com]

I hope this helps as soon as I get someone to print me so parts I am going to make a mounting system for the web cam and laser.

-Swinson

I've seen this before, but I never realized they could get such high quality scans with it.

I wonder how hard it would be to make a laser scanning head for a rep(st)rap? You could take any object, scan it, model it and reprint it. By using a reprap to control the head, you could get pretty accurate scans too.

JHoff

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/25/2009 12:19PM by jhoff.

My only problem with this method is that it only scans one face. I am trying to find software that can combine all of the faces to get one 3D object.

swinson Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> My only problem with this method is that it only
> scans one face. I am trying to find software that
> can combine all of the faces to get one 3D object.

I believe the program MeshLab can align and merge multiple meshes into a single mesh. See: [meshlab.sourceforge.net]

You may want to checkout splinescan. I believe it works as well, but is free.
[www.splinescan.co.uk]

I am working on some (Java open source) software for my PhD that takes as input photos and outputs a 3D model. The only assumption(s) I am really making is that there is a known calibration sheet in all the photos and that the object you are wanting a model of is sitting on it (and is not moved between photos of course). As long as the object has a good contrast with the background the outline should be easily found to the level of accuracy available by the photos.

At the moment I am also assuming that all the photos are taken by the same webcam/cameraphone etc. and that any holes in the object can be identified by the fact that in at least one of the photos one of the calibration sheet markers is visible through it.


Next year once the software is working to a 'good' standard I'll be releasing it as a beta to get feedback on what is broken etc. Sorry its a bit 'skunkworks' but there isn't much point in releasing it until it works as there are many parts that need to be working before it will be of any use to anyone.

The long term plan is to add it into the Reprap codebase and design a '3d scanning toolhead' - probably with a webcam attached or something - and add 3d scanning functionality to Reprap.

But the software is also designed to be general enough that it can be used standalone or as part of a generic scanning toolchain.

My supervisor is wanting to use the software to create a people scanning booth with dots on the walls etc. but that would currently require an expansion to the base software and isn't really in my vision of where I'm wanting to go which is to build on and improve Reprap.

A smaller expansion would be to add in the idea of incorporating the idea of multiple sweeps of an object with it being in different orientations to get a view of the occluded bottom and any other edges.

Hi Reece,

... good to hear, someone is working on this - i want this too ... stay tuned

Viktor

Yeah, so reprap takes several sweeps from different angles, perhaps a 45 degree angle camera with rotation, then automatically combines the resulting jumble into a coherent 3d model, which could then be printed in the very same machine......

That would be sweet!

I've read about plans for a turntable too, a scanner would be able to take advantage of this also i imagine.

I have a David setup, and it's remarkably good out of the box even with a hardware store line and a common-or-garden CCD camera. There's a free version and a "pay-for", I chose the pay-for because it has an integrated software component and assembly UI to orient and conjoin point clouds and surfaces from opposite faces of objects, which works very well with a reasonably fast PC. I like David because you can get up and running with basic equipment, just a laser line and a camera, the background target took a couple of hours to whack together. You can upgrade by either refining and/or replacing your line generator, or camera, or both, by adjusting the light conditions, or cobbling together a rig to move the scan line at a rate that best suits the camera's frame rate. There's also an active forum that showcases user results. There are increasing numbers of alternative methods out there but David is the only one with that sort of support or user base with real world results, most references to the others repeat the producers' claims rather than user results. Some also have more sophisticated hardware requirements than David, like the quantified increment turntables you guys mention.

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 11/26/2009 09:06PM by murd.

Neat!

Do you guys want to clean up this page:
[objects.reprap.org]
and add appropriate links, text, and images?

Also, after we complete the twiki->mediawiki move, I'd like us to start thinking about hosting scans along with other projects, and I'd enjoy hearing folks' thoughts on such projects.

I am currently in the middle of sorting out some code on my web site but after I would be happy to update the links and everything after I'm done.

Sebastion, David has a feature called mesh2flash, which embeds an .obj, with or without texture, into a page as an interactive flash object. Can be done in any page, provided admin enables it. It's a free part of David, and can do any .obj, it doesn't have to be the result of a scan. You can have a look at what's possible here:
[www.david-laserscanner.com]
Whaddya think?

Cool. Splinescan used to have something like that as well, sans flash. I'm not sure about the technical details, but ?javascript? tracked the mouse and the image rotated. It was only for one scan, and I think it was hand-rolled, but I think Andrew Lewis could write a python script to do it in an evening. From email, he's very busy, and I think he doesn't have that evening right now.

He may be open to approaches from people who are up for coding it or who want to play around in the splinescan source to see how things work, dunno. This may be too early. But I'd say email him, and let him know you're available.

Once he hits a major release, I expect he may open up to co-developers who can add sexy/important features like David-scan has. This will help RepRap user-builders and splinescanners who don't want to shell out lots of cash for non-free software.

---------------------------------

I reallly want to install things like the flash thing, only without the server imploading.

I'm lining up a test server to install a virgin mediawiki and phorum install on in order to test out stuff like this without rolling out unknown code on a primary server. I'll make an announcement once I've got it lined up, in a few different threads, and we'll try to get to get it working.

I think it will be nice to support patch fuctionality, so that users can upload 'patches' to Darwin, Mendel, post-Mendel (Eiffel?), other folks' repstraps, etc.
e.g. reprap.org/extruder
would get
reprap.org/extruder/patch_1
etc.

Patches would be clearly and politely labeled as such, and we'd manually check them into the master release after user/dev testing. I'm expecting a patches system and other changes will really speed up RepRap development.

I'll need help from interested folk, I'll make an announcement once we've got a test server up, and eventually folk can email me for ssh passwds. (After a brief self-introduction if I don't know them from the forum.)

I tried David Laserscanner this week. I used the free version and tried to paste the meshes together with MeshLab. MeshLab wants four points of intersection for adjacent scans and I found that four scans was not nearly enough to produce the necessary overlap. The objects I was using were also not highly patterned so finding matching points was difficult. Perhaps with practice I'll get a usable 3D object.

Note that the 60mm calibration pages are formatted for A4 paper and won't print completely on US letter-size paper.

It makes it easier to join meshes in meshlab if you scan a reference object along with the prime object. If a cube is attached to the prime object while scanning, above it like the star on a Christmas tree for example, and fixed in the same relationship to the prime target for the two or three scans that you're positioning, there are at least three explicit vertices on the cube in each scan to use as points of reference when you're aligning the meshes.
Before Australia and New Zealand metricated completely, we had A4 paper, quarto and foolscap. Gone, baby, gone, except for A4. This is a good thing.

This brings to mind the fantasy of having a 3D scanner next to the Mendel, and having a large button marked "copy" between them!

Someday...

modelling clay/wax/plasticene -> solid, hard plastic is gonna be a fun translation

Hi Reece

Is it possible for me to compare notes with you? I would also like to have a start to finish solution for 2D to 3D. I'm planning to go with windows scripting initially then later to a stand-alone app.

The interactive page that Splinescan used to have was interesting. It had a script that displayed one picture of 1000-and-some, dependent on where the cursor was on the page. I think that the cursor position referenced camera position for each shot. I was interested enough to save the source code, got it on a drive somewhere.

For an alternative method that looks very good, see [mi.eng.cam.ac.uk]

Uses a simple webcam, and hand rotated objects to be scanned. Limited to objects with *sufficient* patterning / texture on the surfaces, but that should not be a severe problem.

hey guys check this out - [www.bestsoftware4download.com]

FYI [www.instructables.com]

Could you just space two web cams about 5 in apart and use software to get 3d points. like human eyes and depth perception?

How high is the quality... and is it worth spending more on a fantastic video camera... would that result in better results?

The cambridge paper and videos are amazing! ...but that code is not available right?

What if you were to mount a camera instead of an extruder on a RepRap, and make the stepper move the camera in circles while the head moves around the object, filming the whole time. This would get tons of pictures from every angle, and you would know the exact position of the camera at every moment. No laser needed. The hard part is the software to analyzed it. I think Photosynth can do it.

Hi

What is your opinion thereof?

[www.vi3dim.com]

Good software?

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/03/2012 08:45AM by balu999.

... interestig - I've downloaded the trial and will test it soon.

In the next days I hope to receive two comercial dental scanners with PC and software, that can scan with much more resolution (=biger pointclouds or filesizes with hundreds of Megabytes) but only some qubic-centimetres big objects ... then I'll test the Vi3Dim-software with this cameras too ...

---

Viktor
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Aufruf zum Projekt "Müll-freie Meere" - [reprap.org] -- Deutsche Facebook-Gruppe - [www.facebook.com]

Call for the project "garbage-free seas" - [reprap.org]

The demo verzion sucks.
Windows 7 freeze.Xp go with a bad picture but it does.

Someone bought the full version?

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/03/2012 12:20PM by balu999.