Dave advises:
"I used the 3D scanner and color 3D printer yesterday. It ended
up working pretty well. John and I discovered a couple of things
while using the Scanner. We tried taking a bunch of scans of my
object (20 degrees rotation between each scan for a total of 18
scans). When we tried to merge all these scans though the
resulting 3D model had a lot of large holes in it. We weren't
sure exactly why this was happening but the merge worked better when we
used fewer scans. It
seems that a general guideline might be to
use the minimum number of scans necessary for a full merge (maybe 60
degrees rotation between scans).
Also, the proper export file
type from the 3D scanner for full color texture map is VRML Type 2
(.wrl). VRML Type 1 does the geometry ok but you lose the
color
detail (the whole thing came out purple)."
Jamie adds:
"- Don't take too many scans. 4
scans, 90 degrees apart is probably good.
- When all your scans are aligned, don't
do the "merge points" command as I did. This grabs the data
from all the scans, puts it in one node, and removes your ability to go
back and adjust the individual pieces later.
- SAVE often. the program
crashed on me a few times.
A lot of these things you'll find out. It takes a significant amount of
time to get a scan done, cleaned, and ready for printing. I spent 4
hours today, and have to go back and do it again because I did that
merge points thing (from which I was unable to produce a clean
polygon)."
You can export many 3D file types:
The Vivid 910 can "digitize variable volumes (between 110x80x40
mm and 1200x900x750mm)", it scans up to 24 bit colour texture map too.
1. Getting Started: In the window select the Minolta Icon along the toolbar. You will promted to calibrate the Scanner. If you are ready to, do so. Otherwise pass on this option for now, we'll get back to it shortly. Along the left hand side of the screen are a number of checkboxes, dials, whatnot. Check "Show Image Window". In the window that opens check "Enable Streaming video" If using the turntable place the object to be scanned on the turntable. Adjust the scanner via the two cranks located below the scanner housing. Somewhat counterintuitively the crank below the scanner controls up/down and the crank on the side left/right. Move the turntable so that the entire object will appear in the scan window throughout its 360 degree rotation. This can be a little bit tricky for larger, asymmetric objects. Once the object is positioned, click "Update the Color image" in the view window. You are looking here for good focus. If the focus is not so good you can uncheck "Autofocus" and dial the GUI dial to roughly the distance between the lens and the object. Reclick "Update the Color Image". Repeat as needed until focus is fairly sharp. You can also fiddle with lighting conditions using the lamp. It is turned on by clapping twice (unless Seth was fooling with me). You may also want to consider changing Lens. There are three of them, one for telescopic scanning, one for wide range and one for medium range. The medium range works for most applications. Lens are changed by first unscrewing the lens housing and then removing the lens. Lens orientation is fixed by the two screws that stick out. Only one orientation is possible. Once the lens is in place press any button on the back of the scanner to initialize the lens. 2 Calibration: Next, calibrate the scanner. This is accomplished by placing the calibration dealie on the stage. It has stubs on the bottom that fit into the grooves on the turntable stage and should be placed on the turntable stage so that the center of the stage is visible to the scanner. Click "Update Color Image" If the focus looks good, click on "Update Range and Color" in the same window. The resulting negative image should show good contrast. If so, click "Calibrate Axis" near the bottom of the left hand panel. You should be all set to go. 3. Scanning: Place your object on the turntable and click "Update color Image" to confirm focus. If focus is good. Select a rotation increment. Enough so that you can get most of the object scanned but no so much that too much data is generated. Something like 30 or 45 degree steps works for lots of things. Check "Show current scan only" and press "Scan".The result of the scan can be seen in the large window. If it looks ok, click next. Rotate the scan if you're unsure of the results, as sometimes not all of the information is visible in the unrotated view. Oh yeah, Rotation of the scan is performed by holding down the mouse wheel and dragging. Zoom is perfomed by holding down "Shift" and the right hand mouse button simultaneously. Drag left to right for zoom in, right to left for zoom out. Panning in performed by pressing alt and the right hand mouse button simultaneously. Continue with scans until the Turntable has rotated 360 degrees. Click ok and if you like the results save the file. From here on out save often. There is no incremental undo, and the software freezes sometimes. Save! Save! save! 4 Merging: To select a scan highlight the scan number in the left hand window and then press "alt" and "1" at the same time. The first thing you'll want to do is clean up the unwanted data. Do this by dragging a box around the stuff to be deleted and then pressing, reasonably enough, delete. Rotate the image as needed to grab the big chunks of unwanted data. Don't worry too much about the noise close to the object, it often gets deleting in the merging process. Once the object is reasonably clear of stuff you don't want select "points" > "merge". This will composite the scans. If there are problems with registration check the manual as I don't know how to do that yet. In the left window highlight "merge" and press "Alt" and "1" at the same time to select the merged image. Now select "Polygons" > "Reduce noise". Press "ok" in the window that appears on the left hand side. Then select "Polygons" > "clean". Now right click the mouse in the image window and select "clear all." 5. Editing: Most likely your scan will have some holes in it. If the holes are small select "Polygons" > "Fill holes". To fill small holes that are bounded, make sure "fill holes" is selected and selected a point on the boundary of the hole. It may fill automatically or it may prompt you with windows telling you that the hole is large and that the curvature is complex. Most of the time this is cool. Sometimes the software will fill through the object instead of on the surface. This is bad. So ideally, you'll save often in case this happens. To save you need to click ok on the fill holes window and then save. For holes that are unbounded or large you can select "fill partial" you then select a point on the boundary near the gap. Select a second point along the now green high lit boundary. Finally select the boundary itself. The hole should fill For especially large holes click ok. and select "Tools" > "Mark" > "boundaries" then "Path" > "Fit path". Select a point on the large hole boundary. The will be a number in the left hand window indicating the number of control points in the hole. Reduce that number to like 20 or 30 or 10 depending on the size and shape of the hole. The boundary should refresh and you'll have a smoother boundary which will be easier to fill with the "fill holes" routine. Keep filling holes. This can be boring. If there are too many holes you might want to consider rescanning under different light conditions. You may also want to try merging fewer of the original scans. This is simple to do by "control" selecting the desired scans and then merging as before. There should be at least one hole open when you finish for the base of your object. Don't fill this hole/s using the "Fill Holes" routine. 6 Finishing up: Once the holes have been filled (a number at the top of the "fill holes" window will let you know how many holes remain to fill), you can seal up the bottom. Select "Polygons" > "Section by plane" There are commands for aligning the plane. Can't recall them at present. There will also be some boxes along the right hand side of the window to help you change orientation easily. Using the "align plane" and "back and forth" boxes position the plane so that all but the very bottom of your object is above the plane. Once in position select "intersect plane". The delete the data below the plane by selecting "delete selection" then press "close intersection" to close the object. You should now hava watertight scan suitable for exporting. 6 Exporting: In the left window, highlight merge and press "Alt" + "1". Click the right mouse button and choose "Save as..." either an .stl file (binary or ascii) for the Stratysys or as a vrml 2.0 for the z-corp machine.