DIY scanner - MakerScanner

I was going to make myself a 3D scanner using a XBox Kinect, but I learned that I would have to buy a new video card, which may, or may not have worked with the Windows XP OS of my workshop computer. Plus the buying the card would cut into my hobby budget.

I was surfing around and came onto this: http://www.makerscanner.com/ .This is a DYI scanning scheme that uses a red laser and a PS3 Eye USB camera. You can download the software from the site.

I pulled a laser out of a DVD burner, and after viewing this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dsWbqP6z-X4 , bought the components to make the driver circuit for about $AU15, and dug out some other bits and pieces from my junk pile.

At the moment, making the circuit is at the test fit stage, and I'll get back to working on it tonight.

I'll update progress in this thread.

Old Man Emu

Hi old man emu, a friend and I worked on this problem for a couple of months and I eventually got it to work, but the quality was low, the noise was high, and I found it took way less labor to just use Autodesk's 123D Catch. It's not open source, but it's 100x easier to teach someone else how to do.

I'll post a few pics of my set up and progress, but it took a lot of time and frustration. http://sdrv.ms/1aTxVmZ

It works okay if you just want one side of something, but there's a lot of manual post processing that goes into it. Once you want to get the full 360 degrees on something, you have to delete a bunch of noise from each scan, align the scans semi-manually (meshlab has some nice align tools, but you still have to tell the program some key-points to line up) and then do surface reconstructions that tend to obliterate detail to get a mesh from the point clouds. The resolution is going to be a limitng factor too, that PS3 eye is 640x480. I eventually tried hooking up my dSLR to my webcam for higher resolution, but still was getting more noise than detail.

I don't mean to be too discouraging, just wanted to provide some feedback from someone that's been through the whole process!

I've downloaded 123DCatch and from the tutorial videos it looks good. I'll use a digital SLR camera on a tripod mount. I have a bearing off a swiveling bar stool that I can use to make a rotating platform to put the object on.

Anyone want to buy a couple of DIY laser pointers?

Old Man Emu

Actually you can use the dslr camera, mine s canon 500d and use the software sparkocam to film. Using a line laser that cost 5 dollars, and use the software 3dtriangles to make a 3d scanner. The pointcloud have a very good definition. In alternative you have the software moedls or mo3dls. It is an app to iphone that you can use to make a scanner using the iphone, a line laser and a turntable. You spend max 25 dollars.

This actually appeals to me Samox, the idea I could use my phone camera. Do you get a better result with a higher megapixel camera?

Has anyone made much progress on a DIY scanner? Or does anyone have recommendations for a cheap (<1k) scanner?

I am side-stepping the actual laser scanner while I test VisualSFM software (http://ccwu.me/vsfm/).

Old Man Emu

Where can you get the software "Sparkocam"? :cool:

Where would I get the software "3dtriangles"? :cool:

Sparkocam: http://sparkosoft.com/sparkocam-download

3D triangels: http://softadvice.informer.com/Inter...Full_Free.html

If you are looking at setting up a scanner, look at Thingiverse thing:159981

Old Man Emu

Thank you for taking the time to post a reply and I'll check out all of those sites. :cool:

My pleasure! It was a win for me finding thing 159981.

OME

Quote:

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Originally Posted by old man emu

I am side-stepping the actual laser scanner while I test VisualSFM software (http://ccwu.me/vsfm/).

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I tried to work with Visual SFM, but to complete the job you need to download a program by another developer and tinker with it to suit yourself. Since I don't have the programming skills necessary to do this, I'm not going any further with Visual FSM.

OME

Back to the DIY scanner.

I am going to try a small sport camera of the GoPro helmet mounted type. I have got designs from Thingiverse to make the camera, laser and object stage.

Old Man Emu

DIY scanner is very useful for 3D printing. We directly scan the 3D object using this. I am using a 3D printer for last eight months but the only issue is my pc showing windows error 0x80248007 most of the time.