There’s a few things that have to be in sync before you can scan and Nick showed me how to change preferences in Geomagic Wrap to get better results.
Romer Arm is switched on with the circular button and then the Scanner is activated with a side button very close to the laser.
RDS Connection Utility
R.D.S. is an external utility which connects the laptop with the scanner. If it doesn’t pop up spontaneously, Windows search it to open. It’s the really dark icon between the W and Chrome.
You may have to press ‘USB’ even though it’s already selected.
Geomagic Wrap
When you open the software, choose ‘Advanced’, press the top left icon (3DS?) and look down the list
Options > Hardware > Digitiser > Hexagon
Top Menu > Capture > Scan
Left Panel > Data Format > Ordered Data should be selected
Data is saved in Groups.
There’s some misalignment here but I’m just going to save as OBJs and then take a closer look in MeshLab.
To use Merge, you have to press Dialogue and then OK under Romer (I think), because, until you do that, most of the options are greyed out.
Following on from the photography session earlier this month, some objects were scanned with the Sense 2 Scanner and some new objects were scanned and photographed.
Ceramic pots were photographed and scanned. As the pots’ surfaces are matt and decorated, they make great photogrammetry subjects. The interiors came out really well too, probably because they are so matt, not dark and quite open, without occluded areas.
Matterport is an online subscription service that processes photographs taken with iPhones, certain 360 degree cameras, their proprietary Matterport Pro 2 camera or the Leica BLK 360 laser scanner in order to produce Virtual Tours.
Matterport’s camera/software uses structured light in conjunction with photogrammetry to collect 3D and visual data, usually of interiors. The camera spec is here:
Looking through pots: recent advances in ceramics X-radiography May 2008 Journal of Archaeological Science 35(5):1177-1188 Ina Berg
“CAT scan reveals secrets of Viking pot.”Daily Telegraph [London, England], 14 Nov. 2014, p. 14. Gale OneFile: News, https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/A390028179/STND?u=mmucal5&sid=STND&xid=f1f1b006. Accessed 10 Oct. 2020.
Valentina Cannavò, Effie Photos-Jones, Sara Tiziana Levi, Daniele Brunelli, Pamela Fragnoli, Giacomo Lomarco, Federico Lugli, Maria Clara Martinelli & Marie Catherine Sforna (2017) p-XRF analysis of multi-period Impasto and Cooking Pot wares from the excavations at Stromboli-San Vincenzo, Aeolian Islands, Italy, STAR: Science & Technology of Archaeological Research, 3:2, 326-333, DOI: 10.1080/20548923.2017.1329918
Micro-CT is a 3D imaging technique which uses X-rays. Micro-CT / microtomography/ micro computed tomography, is similar to hospital CT or “CAT” scan imaging but on a small scale with greatly increased resolution. Samples can be imaged with pixel sizes as small as 100 nanometers and objects can be scanned as large as 200 millimeters in diameter.
XRF is an acronym for X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy. XRF is a non-destructive analytical technique used to determine the elemental composition of materials. Handheld XRF analyzers measure fluorescent (or secondary) X-rays emitted from a sample when excited by a primary X-ray source. Each element produces a set of characteristic fluorescent X-rays, or “unique fingerprints”, making handheld XRF analysis excellent for quantitative and qualitative measurements.
Sketchfab are running a challenge to upload a scanned model of a souvenir. I chose a plastic lobster which my eldest picked out in a Pwllheli gift shop when he was 6, during our first family holiday.
I started by photographing the lobster for ReCap Photo photogrammetry:
Top View
There were issues with the geometry merging with the table but this didn’t take long to clean up:
Top View cleaned upBottom View mid-cleanSide View propped up with wire
However trying to fit the top/bottom/side view meshes together in MeshLab using Align didn’t go well… maybe because the legs had moved slightly, being somewhat flexible. So I only used MeshLab to transfer colour from the textures to the vertices before exporting the meshes as OBJs and importing into Zbrush.
I ended up using the top view as my guide in Zbrush, and splitting the bottom view model into 9 sections: tail, body left, body right, head left, head right, claw left, claw right, whisker left and whisker right sections, which I then fitted with the top view one by one. (I didn’t use the side view.)
Bottom split into sections to fit with top one by one.
Then I dynameshed the whole model (256 as 128 was too low res) and separated out the limbs which fused in several places (fused by the Dynamesh process) using Zmodeller (Delete Poly, Stitch Vertices) and Close Holes, which worked very well.
Dynamesh 62K polys
I ZRemeshed it (Double PolyCount), subdivided twice so the polycount was greater than the original scan (which was 2.6 Million polys), used Morph Target to protect the geometry while I projected the colour from the original scans from MeshLab onto the new model.
There are some texture areas which need fixing in Photoshop.
So I just need to Polygroup it for UVs and then I can export the texture and edit it. I should have done that first but I just wanted to check the textures would project over OK and they do.
Competition Deadline is 11.59 on 27/07/2020 EDT. British Summer Time is 5:00 hours ahead Eastern Daylight Time. So here it will already be 28/07/2020. But I’ll aim to upload by tomorrow evening as I need to stop working on this now until tomorrow.
“While 3D-scanners and photogrammetry are widely used for documenting historical monuments and archaelolgical excavations, the application of this technology within museums has not yet been established within the daily work routine.“
I was planning to work with Bolton Museum for my dissertation project. This is probably no longer possible due to the restrictions imposed in response to the Corona Virus outbreak.
Ian, the conservator who oversees Bolton’s fascinating and extensive Ancient Egyptian collection, chose these smaller objects as good candidates for scanning or photogrammetry:
Meshroom uses your own computer to calculate a mesh instead of pushing into the cloud like ReCap Photo. It’s Open Source and free to download. Latest release 2019. Recommended on SketchFab. No limit of 100 photos like ReCap Photo.
Started this process with 109 photos at 17.40:
The progress bar at the top gives a rough indication of long the process is going to take. At 17.48 it’s moved about 10% indicating that the process will take over an hour!
Ursula Ackah 
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