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Scanning Results Keep Getting Better

We have  steadily improved our scanning results over the last 6 weeks by modifying hardware, writing new software, and tuning over a dozen variables.  The video below demonstrates the effect of our enhanced noise reduction: Low noise in 3D models is important for two reasons: Low noise 3D looks better.   Low noise 3D models…

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9 Months of Software Enhancements Have Cut Errors in Half Again

This year’s enhancements to the image processing routines in our stereo scanning software has improved processing speed and 3D model accuracy. Comparisons between our current results and those from 9 months ago show that we have reduced the magnitude of one type of geometric error in our 3D scans by a factor of 2 to…

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Progress Report: Sub-Pixel Upgrade Cuts Errors in Half

This post compares our latest 3D results with results from November 2012 (3 months ago). Our 3D models are generated by processing pairs of 2D images, and the same 2D images that were processed in the November post have been processed again. The only difference between the two 3D models is that new version was…

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First Low Resolution 3D Point Cloud from Proto-4F

The cameras are finally calibrated, and the communications and power systems are installed and working. Now I can finally begin producing scans to test and fine tune the software. Today I scanned part of the lab, and the animated GIF illustrates the 3D nature of the scan. When producing a 3D model, multiple perspectives must…

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Color from a Black & White Camera

This is the first color image produced by the new camera & lens combination. The bilinear rectification routine that we completed last week was automatically applied to correct chromatic aberration.  In the future bicubic interpolation will make the image even sharper.  The original 16-bit image had levels and curves adjusted in Photoshop, and the result was converted to…

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Interpolation: Bilinear vs Bicubic

Stereo reconstruction works by identifying similar features within two images, and we will use any technique that enhances small features.  As a first step in our stereo reconstruction pipeline we currently use bilinear interpolation to rectify/dewarp images.  While bilinear interpolation is easy to code and does a good job, there are many other types of interpolation worth considering. The…

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Converting 16 bit Images to 8-bit Images

We spent the last year designing and building a camera and software that can capture images with pixels that are 16-bits deep.  It isn’t easy to view these images since most tools expect 8-bit images, so the following routine is used to squeeze the 65,536 values in the 16-bit image down to the 256 values…