This 3D model includes alignment errors……. and we know how to fix them. Our objective is to develop an automatic 3D model creation system, and we know from experience that the errors will get smaller as our calibration process is refined. Below is a description of how this model was made using images from Proto-4F…
Photorealistic 3D scanning has unique requirements when compared to regular photography. Because a 3D model will be viewed from multiple perspectives, the 3D scanner must be able to capture multiple perspectives. Not only must you move left and right when scanning, you must also move up and down. This scissor jack was built to allow…
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…
Our experience putting 3D models of buildings into Google Earth. We use Google SketchUp for modeling. Our examples are from Purcellville Virginia.
Adrian and I have started investigating how to merge the 3D-360 output into Google SketchUp, and ultimately into Google Earth. This April we expect to expand his latest 3D model of porch into 3D models of complete house. Once the house is complete will photorealistic interior. The interior will produced by scanning real rooms within…
The Prototype-4.x family of 3D-360s is based on a camera that we have been developing for over a year. While several areas of enhancement are still left to be implemented, the new camera is ready to be compared against the Canon 5D. Prototype-3 used eight Canon 5Ds, and the new camera in Prototype-4 needs to…
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…
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…
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…
This weekend we assembled the first of the new lenses (the 3D-360 will use 10 of them). The new lens is bright and sharp. We also assembled a variant of the LED Light Engine for military evaluation.