I'm still learning how to use the scanner and also tools to work with the resulting data (Meshmixer and TurboCAD), but I just had a really successful result tonight and had to share. The result below was done entirely in the THREE without using external tools.
There was apparently a bug that affected my unit causing scans (before firmware update) to come out a bit distorted, and also had affected the behavior of the point-pick alignment screen. With those issues corrected, this scanning session went pretty well.
I used an old Android 10" tablet to run most of the scans and the initial set of auto-alignments. I then went to my desktop to finish up with a few point-pick alignments followed by a few more scan to capture and auto-align a few missing details from the initial scans.
A couple things that I want to mention to other THREE users... I held the remote using a clothespin clamped to a roll of packing tape. My first group of scans did not auto-align well -- I suspect having the clothespin at 90 degrees to the remote made the auto-align get confused. On subsquent scans, I had the remote and the clothespin askew, and that helped auto-alignment accuracy. I did several main scans at different brightness levels, deliberately blowing out the view in order to get good scans of the black plastic body which otherwise did not capture.
I did have to use point-pick alignments in a few places to help the alignment along in a few cases.
The LED emitter area was not captured thoroughly, so you can see that "hole" looks a little bit odd. I'll update the project later with that area scanned more carefully.
I also posted a video showing off the different merged meshes and textures here (Twitter)
Nice work Joseph, thank you for sharing!!
Trevor.
Looking good. Are you using the noise reduction option when scanning? I've tried using it at different levels, but I've honestly found I get the best/smoothest results when I just leave it cranked to maximum (31).
I had noise reduction set to 20. The capture settings were always the same as shown here, while brightness and turntable scan/sweep were occasionally adjusted as needed.
Ok, this is pretty awesome. I was able to make a magnetic nest for the remote so that I can mount the remote on a pole.
Video in imgur album
I like to use Noise Reduction at 31 or 16, depending on the size of the object I'm scanning. For really detailed, small surfaces (like a coin) I go for 31. Otherwise I go for 16.
Is that the official Matter and Form recommendation? No, it is not. There isn't an offical recommendation for it, but it's what I like to do. Point noise will have a greater adverse effect on the scan result when dealing with small, detailed surface areas, rather than larger areas, because a small area has fewer points in total and therefore the noise will have greater overall effect. On a larger area, there are far more good points, and they will overwhelm any problems caused by the noise.
It's not an issue to always leave Noise Reduction at 31, but since it adds to the scan time, I use 16 unless I'm doing something really small with tiny details.
On the topic of point noise - in the camera settings you should favour Exposure over Gain. In your screenshot, I would try the next level up on Exposure, and reduce the Gain. Gain introduces camera noise, which will introduce point noise into your scan, so it's best to use it sparingly. Just a little bit of gain, to brighten things up just a bit, is good.
Regardles, that's a very nice result Joseph!
