I have a couple of three axis mills I've built over the years and I've build a pretty good touch probe to go with it.
My life would get a lot less complicated if instead of smearing a model with plaster and such for more then an hour or two at a time I could sweep then with a laser and essentially machine a body-double from foam in a very short time. An hour modeling session could yield a dozen scans. An added plus to the model is that no one has to touch them or get messy stuff stuck to their boobies. (pretty clear advantages here, from the models perspective anyway)
I see a lot of OK scans of kick knacks and such but seriously it wouldn't be too hard to make a mold from a plastic statue.
Lawrence
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Hello Lawrence,
I don't see any technical problems with scanning a human body.
The method that I use is to scan using something like a 3 axis mill with the spindle replaced by the scan device (camera and laser and optics). So, for scanning a human body, you need a three axis stage that is large enough to scan a human body. Let's say a 600mm wide by 2000mm length by 300mm depth.
To make specific recommendations I would need to know the accuracy requirements and maybe the timing requirements since a live person must be relatively still during the scan.
Accuracy on the order of 1% of the camera field of view is reasonable to expect. So if you want 1mm accuracy then you are pretty much limited to a 100mm field of view. Since a human body is probably 6 times this width you would need to make six passes, moving the scanner over 100mm for each successive pass.
Each lengthwise pass could be 1mm steps for 2000mm length.
If you need finer detail then you could use a scanner intended for finer accuracy and make more passes to cover the area.
Keep in mind that the Z field of view is also limited. So multiple Z axis scans would be necessary if the model is well endowed.
To get all sides of the model you would have to role the model over and try again. The multiple scans would have to be assembled with CAD software that can work with point cloud data.
If you are serious about making this convenient then consider a scanner mounted to travel around a standing model or a model reclining on something transparent. This would use x, y, z and theta for axes.
Say more about how you would want to do this and I will try to come up with more specific suggestions.
Tom Hubin
thubin@earthlink.net