Want to have some fun? On a less practical note, the image in Figure B is of a scanned peanut re-made into the ultimate peanut-gunship. Environmentals, lighting, "helbore" turret and remapped surface textures were added in trueSpace. An animation of "lift-off" and strafing run were also accomplished in trueSpace.

FIGURE B


Turn your peanuts into gunships. Roll over picture for a larger image.

Bottom line
There are many advantages to this setup. The color cameras capture full-color textured surfaces, the resolution is excellent (0.005"), scans are fast. Quick takes approximately 30 seconds while Fine takes about 2 minutes.

The scanner comes complete with an auto-positioner that does automatic indexing, which automates the process of performing 360-degree scans. Also, it has an "auto-alignment" feature which allows for alignment of turntable scans without any user input and "Refine-alignment" which uses geometric analysis to make alignment of adjacent scans more precise.

The software interface is intuitive and interactive with "future-state" online support.

There aren't that many downsides. The memory requirement for the included software is (for an average PC) a fairly chunky 2 gigabytes of RAM and the files can get big. The data is so dense that you can usually decimate the resolution up to 4 times without noticing any difference.

Artist and designer Will Huff suggests using Polygon Cruncher. I use it as a plug-in for 3D Photo Browser, which can help manage the large number of triangles making up the surface of these big files without noticeable drop in resolution. The two programs together are $129. Will has written a great story (PDF) on this, which is well worth your time to read.

So there you go. You can build your own 3D fab, which can live entirely on your desktop. It doesn't get much cooler than this.

James Booth is Editor-at-Large at ZATZ Publishing. In addition to writing for Computing Unplugged and Connected Photographer, he's the author of Do-It-Yourself Wedding Photography. A self-taught photographer, James also dabbles in digital graphics and has learned to be a PC and handheld specialist through personal trial and error. James can be reached at jbooth@zatz.com.