This technique has the distinct advantages of being cheap, fast, and accurate. Notice how the laser line moves to the left of the image when my hand approaches the camera. The following video explains the concept far better than words. With correct calibration and some math, the range to each point can be calculated. As objects approach the sensor, the laser line appears closer to the edge of the camera's image. A laser pointer (scanning to make a vertical line) and a camera are offset a base distance B.
The technique projects energy into a scene in order to perform rangefinding. The color information has been removed.Īn Overview of How the MakerScanner works Lots more work put into the scanner and have dramatically improved quality! Here's two scans of a nautilus shell combined into a single 3D pointcloud. If you're interested you can get the pointcloud and STL files here. Head over to the documentation page (and the Thingiverse part page) where you'll find complete documentation for the MakerScanner v0.3!Ī scan of my face! I used Blender 3D to clean the pointcloud and MeshLab to create a surface which we then 3D printed on a Makerbot. Every one of the scanner's plastic parts can be printed on a MakerBot or other 3D printer! The MakerScanner is a completely open source 3D-scanner and the perfect complement to a MakerBot or other 3D printer.