Conclusions
After my tests, I discovered several tricks to the software:
- Lighting is important. The shadows caused by my flash-heavy photography made generating the geometry difficult. In both examples, the hard shadows which moved from picture-to-picture caused problems that could have easily been resolved via better lighting.
- Background is important. With a good high-contrast background (combined with good lighting), the masking process is significantly simpler and the results better.
- More pictures is a diminishing-returns process. They require 15, and I found 18 to be a good number. Adding more pictures added unnecessary processing time, and actually deteriorated the resulting model.
Strata sells the Foto3D CX software for $695 via their online store. Given the prices of the alternatives:
- Full 3d Laser scanning solution: $10k +
- Model it from scratch : Several hours of your time & sanity..
It’s a bargain if you deal with this situation often. Users who find themselves frequently needing to scan 3D models will find Foto3D CX an invaluable tool for it’s power,flexibility, and excellent price point.
You can visit their website for several examples and download a trial (Currently of version 1.6). If you are interested in the quality of the models (keeping in mind my meager photography and modeling skills), you can download them here (VRML WRL & Texture):
If you create something impressive, or have questions, leave them in the comments. We look forward to hearing from you!
This software is complete waste of money. After spending most of two days trying to coax it to work. I give up. It just doesn’t work. Neat idea. Bad implementation.
don’t waste your time or money for this crap. Real 3d artists never use it.
I like the article on the 3d scanner, they have come a long way in recent years. I personally use a 3d scanner from 3d digital corp that is similar in function to the cyberware scanner.