3D Scanning, Anyone?

Is anyone using a 3D scanner to capture parts for 3D printing projects?

I got an ISense to go on my IPad but resolution was so poor I haven't even tried printing from the images.

Before I retired from work we were building maintenance platforms at an airport to service an A380 Airbus and employed a commercial company to do a 3D scan (not cheap) because we could not purchase an accurate 3D model of the plane. No 3D printing but used the scanned model in a CAD package to design parts.

Google is your friend....

**LINK**

Take a look at Meshroom. It is free and uses photogrammetry to produce a model from (many) photographs taken with a phone or digital camera. The workflow is pretty simple and the results of the tests I have made impressed me.

The only real issue is that it is processed on CUDA cores, and therefore requires an Nvidia graphics card. I had to swap my AMD card for a pair of GTX760s from my son's PC to run it at all, and even with 2300 cores and 8GB of video RAM it still took nearly an hour to create a model from 40 x 8MP images, so I would suggest that is about the minimum spec and that a modern card (the 760s are six years old and are only CUDA 3.0) would be better.

Brian G

I've tried Meshroom on a couple of things now. First time round was when my wife wanted a 3d-printed model of a rock (don't ask but we have to earn brownie points where we can). That worked pretty well, even with relatively few photos (about 12-16 from memory). However, I'm currently trying to produce a model of a small cast figure (think toy soldier about 40mm high). The problem seems to be that the software struggles to pick out features from a plain white-metal casting. I'm using around 45 images, small aperture/long exposure/image stabilisation/tripod etc, to get best depth of focus and fairly high-res images but struggle to get much further than the "feature matching" phase. There are a few other similar free 3d photogrammetry packages around although Meshroom does look the most promising - with suitable source material!

As mentioned, it is pretty cpu-intensive and works the graphics card hard as well. 

Edited By Nealeb on 10/02/2020 11:29:49

I was looking at this,and similar ciclop/piclop/horus devices, last year **LINK**

https://3dprint.com/120057/cowtech-ciclop-3d-scanner-kit/

... but don’t currently have the space available for another toy.

MichaelG.

I actually built a Ciclop from scratch a few years ago .... machined it from metal because the main parts were too large for my 3D printer. I never had much luck with getting decent 3D models from it.

I'm told you have to persevere with these devices though and i didn't - other things were pressing and I shelved it (literally). I'd just been thinking of resurrecting it when I saw this thread (honest). I should get the latest software.

I dug out my Ciclop and dusted it off. Decided to install the latest firmware to the Arduino Uno (Genuine). The Arduino IDE won't verify the firmware file (horus-fw.ino) - gives errors.

Verifying and uploading a test (LED-Blink) program with the same setup is fine.

If anyone has any ideas I'd welcome them.

.

Sorry: I didn’t get that far before I put the project on the back-burner.

I’ve just had a look at the Horus author’s page, and it doesn’t seem that he has updated it since 2015

**LINK** http://diwo.bq.com/en/?s=horus&lang=en

... may, or may not, be relevant.

MichaelG.

.

https://github.com/LibreScanner/horus-fw

Edit: This is way outside my comfort zone, but it doesn’t look encouraging:

https://3dprinting.stackexchange.com/questions/8057/resources-on-getting-horus-ciclop-scanners-to-work

Edited By Michael Gilligan on 15/02/2020 08:42:08

While idling away the evening with YouTube earlier in the week this

popped up from Prusa Research.

Here

is the website that gives readable details.

Nigel B

Michael, thanks for that. That final link is outside my comfort range too but it seems to deal with the Horus software rather than the firmware. I'll keep it in my back pocket though.

Yes, I agree the files are old. They are probably the ones I used before I shelved it ... and at that time I got the firmware programmed (somehow) and the device basically working although the scans were garbage.

I couldn't remember exactly how long ago that was so I decided to reprogram the firmware with the "current" version to be sure. Probably a mistake actually because in my "poking around" to try to make it work, I did a test verify/upload of the LED Blink demo file so now I've lost my original Horus FW programming too (duh!).

I do still have copies of those original files that I used but I get the same verify errors if I try to use them now. Haven't a clue how I managed before. (Amongst those files is an app called Xloader and a file called Horus-FW.hex Dunno what these are but I must do some further checking there I think).

My problem is, although I've programmed Arduinos any number of times, it's always as a "follower". That is I upload existing code that someone else has written. I don't really understand a lot of this stuff.

For example, I had a look at the horus-fw.ino file with a text editor and all it contains is:

/* */
/* Hack file to use Arduino IDE */
/* */

I don't know what this means (or how to interpret the grammar). Since the instructions are to simply upload this file to the Arduino, I can only assume it's a directive to the Arduino IDE to compile from the source or something (it seems to do that before barfing). More likely I don't know what I'm talking about.

Edited By Bandersnatch on 15/02/2020 16:54:50

Not really an answer to the original question but the HP Sprout integrated system might be good.

HP

Edited By V8Eng on 15/02/2020 16:56:33

Edited By V8Eng on 15/02/2020 17:00:42

I have no idea whether this will help anyone, but it’s the page that first attracted me to Ciclop: **LINK**

https://www.instructables.com/id/Ciclop-3D-Scanner-BQ-Horus/

MichaelG.

I actually have that (filed as a pdf). As far as programming the Arduino goes, it says to do exactly what I'm doing - but it doesn't work for me.

However ... I mentioned above that I had found XLoader and a hex firmware file amongst my old stuff from when I did this before. I started digging and landed here:

**LINK**

I'm virtually certain that I got there the first time and went through this whole process - the IDE route didn't work and I got around it using the hex file based on this information.

I hope to try again this afternoon (my time).