Re: 3D modelling
Posted by
Jon Elson
on 1999-05-08 22:45:54 UTC
drfoot@... wrote:
I remembered about 10-15 years ago, a big craze (and small business) putting people's pictures
on T shirts. I thought, "Yeah, I'll take digital pictures of my kids from several positions, use a
program to convert the pictures to a 3-D point cloud, and then write a toolpath generator.
I could franchise this and make a bundle! Yeah!" Well, I talked to some people about it,
and downloaded some of the 2-D to 3-D mapping programs, and then asked specific questions
of these outfits. The response was unanimous. Yes, they all wanted to do this, and yes, they'd
all tried it, and no, their software really didn't perform well. One company said they actually
got it to work (the face is shown in wire frame on their web page) but that it took an experienced
CAD/CAM operator well over 8 hours to massage that face into reasonable shape. The hair
is hopeless! But, for that, you could fudge it with canned versions of the backs of people's
heads, and no one would ever know.
Since then, the Minolta (I think that's the right company) laser scanning camera has come out,
but it is around US $10000. Slightly out of my budget.
Anyway, if the object can be scanned by a coordinate measuring machine, or is simple enough
for the 2-D to 3-D mapping programs to work, then it is possible. You don't tell me more
about what you want to do, so that's as good as I can do.
Jon
> From: drfoot@...Yup, I got this idea, too, right after I got my CNC mill running, and had done a few 2-D objects.
>
> stumbled onto this list very much by accident (lucky me) - looking for any info/links to help me - want to take a 3D object, digitize it (?laser/video) into the computer, modify it, then mill this modified object - budget is VERY low, so shareware & surplus sound good
I remembered about 10-15 years ago, a big craze (and small business) putting people's pictures
on T shirts. I thought, "Yeah, I'll take digital pictures of my kids from several positions, use a
program to convert the pictures to a 3-D point cloud, and then write a toolpath generator.
I could franchise this and make a bundle! Yeah!" Well, I talked to some people about it,
and downloaded some of the 2-D to 3-D mapping programs, and then asked specific questions
of these outfits. The response was unanimous. Yes, they all wanted to do this, and yes, they'd
all tried it, and no, their software really didn't perform well. One company said they actually
got it to work (the face is shown in wire frame on their web page) but that it took an experienced
CAD/CAM operator well over 8 hours to massage that face into reasonable shape. The hair
is hopeless! But, for that, you could fudge it with canned versions of the backs of people's
heads, and no one would ever know.
Since then, the Minolta (I think that's the right company) laser scanning camera has come out,
but it is around US $10000. Slightly out of my budget.
Anyway, if the object can be scanned by a coordinate measuring machine, or is simple enough
for the 2-D to 3-D mapping programs to work, then it is possible. You don't tell me more
about what you want to do, so that's as good as I can do.
Jon