Do you guys know anything about 3D scanning/printing?

[kaylee]

I want to create a 3D scan of my dog. (Yes, I'm 100% serious).

Assuming I could get him to hold still indefinitely (lol), is there a 3D scanning process that will capture a man-sized dog at a super high resolution, enough to print a highly realistic statue at a 1:1 scale, or much bigger? The dogee in question looks like this btw, hes my lil angel ?

It'll obviously be WAY better than this

so please help. is what im seeking even possible?

thank u ily ❤️

[BTM_Pix]

There was a company a couple of years ago that had scanning booths in some UK supermarkets to do this and produce 3D models of people and pets.

There are still companies that do it such as this one 

https://www.shapify.me

Then there are companies like this one that will make you a 3D model from images you send them too

http://www.uscan360.com

If you want to go DIY then this site has a lot of information about hardware (yikes on the price!) but also free and low cost apps to do it yourself.

 

Its funny that you should mention 3D scanning and printing as we were looking at a 3D printer the other week in an electronics shop while we were buying a memory stick and marvelling how cheap it was. We'd recently watched the documentary 'Print The Legend' which is about how the low cost manufacturers had started (its a far more interesting film than it sounds!). We then determined that we'd never actually use it because we couldn't think of something to print on it that we couldn't get in a shop and for cheaper (and certainly quicker because they take a looooong time to make anything). Since then of course, I've had a need for multiple different things I could've used it for!

 

[kaylee]

thanks @BTM_Pix~! yeah i checked out shapify, also this place that has a location in LA (im in SoCal) https://www.doob3d.com/

im wondering if the technology even exists to get a very high resolution 3D scan of an animate subject like that – like my dog might hold still for 1 second but hes sure as hell not going to hold still for 12 seconds. if the scanning process is done via tons of cameras, that shouldnt be an issue, but theres different ways to go about this apparently

im willing to spend thousands of dollars on getting him scanned if thats what it takes, but i havent found a clear answer yet on whether what i want is even possible...

[BTM_Pix]

If he's anything like the dog I used to have as a kid then he could sit utterly immobile if there was a biscuit dangled in front of him. 

If it was a chocolate one he could hold the pose long enough for you to cover him in papier mache and make a mould of him.

I'd be inclined to email the guy who runs that review site and see what he thinks. Its the scale of it that may or may not be an issue as those ones in the supermarket tended to be action figure size.

[bunk]

The prints from the photoscanner look like shit and only half descend because the photos used for the scan are also used as a texture.

Here is what you can do.
Use this photoscanner to create a scan of your dog. Give the file together with the photo's it creates to a 3d sculpt artist, so he/she has a starting point to create a life like sculpt of your dog. The sculpt will look way better than the scan and even descend when printed at a height of 25 centimeters average (without texture).

But you want a life size print. There are two problems. Small printers print up to 25cm average. Industrial printers are probably out of reach and I wonder if they have the resolution you are after.

Lets say you want to print the dog in pieces and glue them together afterwards.
If you use the data of the 25 centimeter dog it will give the same effect as shooting at 2k and scaling it up to 8k. 
http://3dprintingcenter.net/2016/01/31/how-to-3d-print-a-1-meter-high-sculpture-of-the-hero-of-childrens-animated-movies-part-2/
No detail what so ever was left from an already poorly detailed original.

If you subdived the sculpt enough to keep the details for a 1mtr print the computer probably comes to a stand still and the sculpt artist won't be able to cut the sculpts into parts for the print ...and if he/she manages, your print times will go way up (on the one hand robust enough the be glued together on the other hand fur detail).

Why not hand over some photos to a sculptor and ask for a real piece of art in bronze? ...at least it will have some artistic value.

[kaylee]

thanks @bunk, thats so helpful~!

what youre saying makes complete sense... i thought this might be the case.

being that my ultimate desire is to make a HUGE statue (30' or something), I would actually be using a 3D printed model for reference for the sculptors who make it

i just thought that if possible a 3D scan would be ideal because its true to life, if one could be created with enough detail

44 minutes ago, bunk said:

Why not hand over some photos to a sculptor and ask for a real piece of art in bronze?

id like this to be full color and realistic, like something out of a practical sfx shop. that being said, ill definitely hire people to make it lol

44 minutes ago, bunk said:

...at least it will have some artistic value.

im afraid thats highly subjective; case in point is the +/- $60 million balloon dog above

[bunk]

I

38 minutes ago, kaylee said:

being that my ultimate desire is to make a HUGE statue (30' or something), I would actually be using a 3D printed model for reference for the sculptors who make it

i just thought that if possible a 3D scan would be ideal because its true to life, if one could be created with enough detail

How about approaching Ron Mueck ...I think you can skip the scans

[jcs]

I consulted on a project a few years ago where the product was 3D printed pets. I recommended photogrammetry for the capture since all cameras can fire at once: if the pet isn't perfectly still, not a problem. The end result is a very high quality 3D object and texture map.

This company uses your own photos, so there's a bit of art / manual modeling going on. Less accurate, but perhaps more affordable than shooting in a multi camera booth and using photogrammetry: https://3dprint.com/160671/furever3d-3d-print-miniature-pets/

[Snowfun]

Go for a real bronze sculpture. 

[buggz]

I have always been told chocolate is very bad for a dog.  I have to Google this now...

Wow, that's what I thought, it is poisonous to them.

PLEASE DON'T give dogs chocolate!

[BTM_Pix]

31 minutes ago, buggz said:

I have always been told chocolate is very bad for a dog.  I have to Google this now...

Wow, that's what I thought, it is poisonous to them.

PLEASE DON'T give dogs chocolate!

I was referring to being a kid in England in the 1970s.

We frequently ate soil.

[HockeyFan12]

I have an acquaintance who works for one of the larger 3d scanning companies. They use reality capture for software (widely available) and about 100 consumer-level dSLRs in an evenly lit space designed to reduce specularity on the subject. You could set this up too but the 100 dSLRs gets expensive. 

There are consumer-level 3D scanners but they're too low res for what you want to do. I would give a call to some of the higher end 3d scanning houses. 

[jcs]

Multicamera photogrammetry is the best solution for objects which can move, such as pets. This is not 3D scanning, since the capture is simultaneous, instant:

You can do photogrammetry with just one camera for still objects or even people if they hold fairly still, this is a form of 3D scanning: https://www.allegorithmic.com/blog/go-scan-world-photogrammetry-smartphone

http://www.agisoft.com/community/showcase/ (one of the better quality solutions)

http://www.photomodeler.com/

http://www.photomodeler.com/products/scanner/default.html

This is pretty cool, though low res last time I looked at it: https://structure.io/ (uses a depth sensor along with a camera; really a developer tool at this stage vs. consumer/professional product)

http://3dscanexpert.com/3-free-3d-scanning-apps/

 

[kaylee]

11 hours ago, bunk said:

Use this photoscanner to create a scan of your dog. Give the file together with the photo's it creates to a 3d sculpt artist, so he/she has a starting point to create a life like sculpt of your dog

i hear you, this is what im thinking might work best. giving a good 3d sculpt artist a mediocre 3d model and tons of great reference photos would prolly work out just fine (?)

1 hour ago, jcs said:

Multicamera photogrammetry is the best solution for objects which can move, such as pets. This is not 3D scanning, since the capture is simultaneous, instant:

thanks for the info and links jcs, im checking them out rn~!!! i think i need a place in LA that does this, right?

and id give that 3d file along with a bunch of great reference photos to a 3d sculpt artist – how does that sound?

although my ultimate goal may be to make a giant sculpture – far beyond the scale of the current capabilities of 3d printing, as bunk explained – i like the idea of having a great 3d model to make editions of small ones, different sizes, out of anything, plastic, metal, chocolate (lol). in the future ill prolly be able to 3d print one that looks like a cut diamond or something ridiculous

9 hours ago, bunk said:

Ron Mueck

personally i think that ron mueck is a genius and i like his work very much. unlike jeff koons (ballon dog, above), ron actually makes his pieces himself

his beautiful hyperrealistic sculptures tend to have an obvious surreal twist, which just for the record is not what im going for, im shooting for Friendly Doggee lol

[jcs]

@kaylee if you're going to have a sculpture made, just reference photos are sufficient. 3D data is useful if you're going to use a computer to 3D print. I think the highest quality results are still achieved using a laser depth scanner along with photos as texture maps (again, not really suitable for pets since they typically won't hold still). Photogrammetry uses cross-correlation to match pixels from multiple views. You can get 3D depth from just two photos (I wrote software to do this years ago). For a full 3D model, you needs a lot of views and it takes a very long time to compute; additionally the results typically tend to require a lot of manual post-clean up. A laser scan provides an accurate 3D point cloud and along with high resolution 2D photos, modern tools can convert to triangles for which the 2D photos can be used as texture maps. Even so, to provide 'movie quality results' (as seen in the movies ), a lot of manual 3D modeling work is still required. In summary, very expensive for a life-sized large pet result! Reference photos for a sculptor might be the most cost effective solution right now (until we get Star Trek Replicator technology from our Alien Overlords ).

[IronFilm]

Photogrammetry is what you want to do, and I've dabbled in this before myself.

For a living object (especially a dog!) you'll need an array of cameras. Not one by itself!

[Grimor]

Probably the most real and cheap method will be Taxidermy.

[kaylee]

was that meant to be funny? thanks a lot you moron

anyway~!!! im learning all about zbrush and its really awesome~! i might be a lot better at this than i thought, it seems very intuitive, like sculpting with clay, and i can use my wacom tablet! ?

i made something in sketchup recently that almost killed me ?  sketchup is NOT what i would call intuitive, but at the end of the day it inspired me to think that maybe i could do even MORE with 3d programs...???? ? 

should i use zbush?? is it kewl?? pls let me kno

addendum: im assuming that models made in zbrush can be used for vfx, a video game, 3d printed, or whatever... is that right?

[jcs]

1 hour ago, kaylee said:

should i use zbush?? is it kewl?? pls let me kno

addendum: im assuming that models made in zbrush can be used for vfx, a video game, 3d printed, or whatever... is that right?

Zbush is clearly the best 3D software for designing 3D bushes!

Zbrush models can be used for vfx, video games, 3D printing (with some additional processing), etc. It's been around for a long time... http://pixologic.com/zbrush/industry/

[bunk]

2 hours ago, kaylee said:

and i can use my wacom tablet! ?

should i use zbush?? is it kewl?? pls let me know

I never understand how people are able to use a mouse with modeling, feels like you're handicapt.

If Zbrush clicks with you go for it, you can't go wrong. It never clicked with me so I went the 3DCoat route. ...and then there is Mudbox, if it still excists.