Hi All,
I thought I would share some images from an interesting project that I have been working on.
I was contacted by a 3D scanning company that specializes in scanning props, people etc for the film industry. They had done a beautiful job of scanning a classic MG and needed a “Proper” 3D model instead of just a massive mesh that no-one can use.
I broke the project into smaller tasks and worked my way through the scan to remodel it in Rhino.
Here are some WIP images.
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Hi Mike, this is a beautiful looking model. It would be nice if you could add a few screenshots of the process.
And we can move the topic into the Gallery category…
Moved to Gallery category.
Beautiful model, I love it. Thanks for sharing!
That looks fantastic! Which prop house? I’m in LA.
The 3D scanning was done by Avatar Factory in Melbourne, Australia using a hgh accuracy Track Scan system. I am based in Brisbane Australia.I have been creating 3d models from scan data for over 20 years.
Mike.
I made a short video about my process for my ART final video, it can be seen here;
scan2model.com.au
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A wireframe view.
I used a combination of Lofting, SubD, Solid Booleans and shrinkwrap (V8) to create the model.
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Nice work!.
Hi Mike.
Greetings from Canada.
Love your work.
I make models here on the west coast of British Columbia.
I’d love to know a little about how you turn a point cloud into such nice models.
Any chance you’d be able to share how you do it?.
I’ve been trying to work with the latest version of Rhino Sub D but without much success.
Kind regards, Joe.
wow…
simply incredible work!! thanks for sharing- would love to know more about your process!
Hi Kyle, thank you.
Most of my workflow comes directly from your videos !
In most cases I am simply slicing the pointcloud, then tracing off those slices to creat curves for lofting, curve networks etc. I combine a construction plane with 2 clipping planes. Version 8.0 is pretty nice, it now has clipping planes with their own “slice thickness”.
More recently I have been creating a section, then extruding it as a solid, converting that to a quadmesh and SubD for shaping.That is I made the Grill.
The seats and Softtop are made by using Cockroach to do a Voxel downsample of the pointcloud, then a cockroach mesh, then a quadmesh, then to subD.
I also used Shrinkwrap on the soft top, that worked very well.
I have also been experimenting with stitching Subd surfaces directly onto pointclouds (Blender Style) which works very well.
I made an “Intro to 3D modelling from Pointclouds” video for my final ART project, you can see it here on my Youtube channel.I will adding more videos later.
You can also see the MG model and a few of my other models on SketchFab
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that is simply awesome. fantastic work! Thanks a lot for sharing it!
It’s lovely Rhino work, but I’m a bit confused about the ‘Scan2Model’ situation. doesnt this kind of undermine the whole point of their product?
“They needed a “Proper” 3D model instead of just a massive mesh that no-one can use.”
you mention using slices as a guide for your curves but seems like they are admitting defeat, and maybe lying to customers by getting this model made ‘properly’. ?
i am a bit riddled by you comment, i might also be misunderstanding it. but a proper model means that one can work with it further for matters of production etc. so the aim is here to manufacture it. from a scan that might just not be so wishful.
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Hi dandid, It is mainly to do with the file size of the assets, like the car.
3D scanners can generally produce a beautiful looking mesh, but they are enormous files.
They also have hundreds of millions of triangular faces, which makes rendering etc very slow.
They are notoriously hard to UV Map, meaning applying textures etc is almost impossible, especially if the mesh has been reduced.
Remodelling the scan data is actually called “retopology”. I have been watching Youtube videos about Retopo in Blender and applying some of the same principles in my Rhino workflow.
Hi encephalon
Yes, sorry, “Proper” isn’t a good description. More efficient for texturing / rendering would be better.
This particular model is for a virtual movie prop, so no manufacturing from the scan.
If the Rhino model was for manufacturing an identical car, my approach to modelling it from scans would be quite different.
You cant just scan something and send the scans to a CNC machine or Laser cutter etc, the data needs to be remodelled (retopoloogy), generally into a solid model, then processed for tool-pathing etc.
Many people rush out and buy 3D scanners thinking it is a simple turnkey solution for 3d modelling,
…it isnt . 
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clean geometry / surfaces would be my way of describing
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Thanks Martin Siegrist,
You also work from scans so you would understand exactly what I am trying to say lol.
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Hi guys, thanks for the further info, Mike the Model looks amazing, and looking at the mesh iamges your work looks super clean and tidy.
Yes kind of what I always expected with the 3d scans and how useful they might be etc. and I understand the benfits of a more regular peice of cad. much of what I do in Rhino is for CNC sheet cutting and taking pretty renders people have done in 3ds max etc and generating what appears to be the same thing (to some clients) but is actually ready for production.
While your coments all support my suspicions about the strenghts and weaknesses of these types of scans, I think really what I was trying to get my head around is the fact that the work is being done for a company that makes these scanners. like they are admiting defeat that their scans are (in the words of the original post) “just a massive mesh that no-one can use.” I guess maybe the ‘no-one can use’ bit is really just in relation to production?
Anyway, I’m not trying stir up trouble just intersted in the uses for these scans as the flashy Ad’s always look enticing.
I own an Artec Leo and I’m using it for preparation of CFD data, art projects and mold / form work development.
‘no-one can use’… is quite true if a user is lacking experience with meshes.
The result of a scan is usually a mesh with thousands of polygons. Artec Studio for example has commands where CAD objects can be fitted to scans. The objects which can be fitted are regular objects like spheres, cones, planes, and so on. There are dedicated applications such as Geomagic and many more that allow refitting NURBS surfaces if that is what you want to do… I’m using QuadRemesh and ShwinkWrap to rebuild meshes and Mesh Cage Morph to manipulate scna data. QuadRemesh converts a mesh to a SubD which can be converted into NURBS.
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