As attention to the 3D scanners appearing on crowdfunding sites such as Kickstarter and Indiegogo and the announcement from MakerBot about their scanner development project, here is a fun introduction to one form of DIY 3D scanning already starting to reach wide circulation: 3D scanning with the Kinect. From Open Electronics:
It only takes a Microsoft Kinect and a computer to scan things and create models of sufficient quality to be 3D printed.
There are a lot of well-known approaches based on laser, video projectors, cameras to create “point clouds” of a 3D surface (thanks to partially open softwares). Now, we have a cheap dedicated hardware that is ready to provide a 3D representation of what’s in front of it. Microsoft Kinect, hacked thanks to some tenacious developers, is now emerging as a simple and effective tool to acquire three-dimensional models. From desktop size stuff up to furniture or the whole person, Kinect can be miraculous on its own.
This is not the right solution to duplicate small object: it’s “resolution” and the volume in which Kinect works best, make the Kinect not suitable for small items such as figurines or small, detailed, objects .
The ingredients
You need a Kinect (Xbox, PC versions or the “compatible” Asus Xtion Pro), a personal computer with ATI or NVIDIA graphics accelerator card and then the ReconstructMe software with the appropriate driver.
Unfortunately, this is not a fully open source solution: it’s a free SDK for non-commercial use (a license fee applies for professional purposes)….
Get the Badge!
Hacked Kinect – Skill badge, iron-on patch: You can made a cool project using the (hacked) Kinect! Adafruit offers a fun and exciting “badges” of achievement for electronics, science and engineering. We believe everyone should be able to be rewarded for learning a useful skill, a badge is just one of the many ways to show and share. (read more)