3D Scanning Projector

[contactpolyga]

Hi all,

Everyone likes to post their latest scans and tech, unfortunately much of what we do can not be shared. Once in a while we get to do some "personal" type projects also.

So I thought I'd share this new toy we made for ourselves recently. -- What is it you ask? --

It's a custom made projector just for 3D scanning. There's a couple nice little features to this little projector.

• Aluminum body so it survives and mounts

• Rigid Mount points for tripods, and camera bars

• High speed projection -theoretically up to 5000 FPS -

• GPIO Triggers for your cameras for high speed scanning

• Fast enough for DIY Handheld Scanning - will post a video later

• Direct Axis projection, - you don't need to tilt your projector relative to your cameras.

• Uses latest TI DLP chipsets, (square pixels) - many *new* projectors uses old DLP projection technology

• Completely linear phase patterns (for accurate scans )

• Single Cable Control -

We looked at being able to swap lenses, but doing that would increase complexity and cost way too much.

So just an internal prototype for now possibly for use in a future scanner. If there's interest we will do a limited manufacturing run for DIY'ers who want one, I will post additional test results as we do them. The projector is built of our H3 handheld scanning projector technology so the projector is tuned for speed.

This is a slow scan using 3mp cameras.
https://imgur.com/a/4wRolUY

Current Limitations

• FS3D control only (sorry requires custom drivers)
  Basler Cameras support only

[Alonso]

That's a pretty fast capture for a "slow scan"
Very nice!

[OBNRacerMan]

What is the throw rate of the projector?
P.S. I am planning to change the lens on my future projector, because even with a throw rate of 1.47: 1 on the current projector, I get too large a backlight area for macro scanning.

[mading]

Well, if your intentios was to impress DIYrs, I think you did it.
I second OBN question about throw ratio.
I think a support for "low cost" global shutter triggered cameras would help.
Somethink in the range of 500k rather than 1500k for each camera. that's my wish.
Unfortunately I have only rolling shutter stuff.

[contactpolyga]

haha, well we're all just DIY'ers who just took our hobby way too far..... and then just kept going. So once in a while we still want to indulge our hobbies again..

The Projector is also a standard 1.47, so not suitable for macro but provides a pretty good 100mm to 400mm scanning range.

Many of the basler global shutter cameras are all under $500 these days with global shutter darts under $200 so i think it's much more affordable these days for global shutter.

[hoffybeefe]

Awesome. Look forward to more info on this! It looks like something i might have to grab! Especially considering i now have a Basler camera (and i'm highly considering grabbing a second.. just trying to find the pro's and cons of whether i should grab two newer Basler Ace2 cameras that do 60fps instead of the Ace1 i have that does 57.5 (at 6MP mind you). If i could customize the resolution to maximize the frame rate i'd be set... but alas i could nto figure out that in neither HP3DS nor FS3D in the single successful calibration i managed to get due to projector issues.

Subbed!

[Alonso]

I take it Polyga prefers Basler cams over FLIR?
At least moving forward it seems.

[contactpolyga]

I can provide a short camera journey / history.

FS3D in the early days supported IDS, Imaging Source and some AVT cameras.

IDS = Low cost entry level cameras, high cost high end cameras.
Imaging Source = Questionable drivers, and very questionable camera behavior but low cost.
AVT = Very Good...expensive, but zero innovation.

Eventually FS3D removed dropped all other camera support exclusively used PTGrey cameras for many years. FS3D development is based in Vancouver, Canada - and so was PTGrey, convenient. So PTGrey drivers are super stable and full featured with years of debugging.

FLIR purchased PTgrey and like the HP purchase of DAVID, everything sucked after...very badly. FS3D switched to Basler. The basler drivers are quite mature now. Between Basler and PTGrey, there's thousands of camera options, most should work work in FS3D with zero issues giving lots of options from low cost to high end.

On low cost cameras like HikVision, Daheng and other vendors in China. Some camera models are okay, but limited options, terrible drivers, unstable behavior, tons of headaches. Good for DIY where cost is a critical choice. In short, we're with Basler but we're always looking for better, and lower cost camera vendors to work with.

There lots of interesting new camera vendors out there we regularly evaluate adding support for. ie. https://thinklucid.com/ - which is alot of old PTGrey guys.... 25MP at 50+ FPS.. as a 3D scanning enthusiast that's pretty exciting.

[contactpolyga]

Awesome. Look forward to more info on this! It looks like something i might have to grab! Especially considering i now have a Basler camera (and i'm highly considering grabbing a second.. just trying to find the pro's and cons of whether i should grab two newer Basler Ace2 cameras that do 60fps instead of the Ace1 i have that does 57.5 (at 6MP mind you). If i could customize the resolution to maximize the frame rate i'd be set... but alas i could nto figure out that in neither HP3DS nor FS3D in the single successful calibration i managed to get due to projector issues.

Subbed!

I think the support guys will hang up the phone if you have 2 different cameras models in one setup... -- make sure they match!

[contactpolyga]

On low cost cameras like HikVision, Daheng and other vendors in China. Some camera models are okay, but limited options, terrible drivers, unstable behavior, tons of headaches. Good for DIY where cost is a critical choice. In short, we're with Basler but we're always looking for better, and lower cost camera vendors to work with.

I just read this over and realized, i don';t want to come off as a camera snob and insult anyone's cameras.

We do buy all these cameras to all the time and they all work pretty well. We're a bit hyper critical because when it doesn;t work we have people screaming at us.... all these cameras vendors that I;ve listed, while they have their faults, by and large are very excellent cameras for 3D scanning.