We have recently started our co-operation with TimeBusters, a company specialising in making Bullet-Time videos. For that purpose they sometimes use a special cage with around 80 DLSR cameras. The cameras take pictures exactly at the same time, so then it is possible to freeze the moment and create the Matrix style animations. But can this cage be used with photogrammetry for 3D scanning of a human?
Since they already have 80 cameras showing one spot from different angles, it is technically possible to create photogrammetry with this setup. But how well? We had to test it first… with a chair. 🙂
The result was quite good. So we proceeded to the second stage of the experiment. We wanted to find out if 3D scanning of a human was also possible…
This is Dominik Bajda from TimeBusters, a student of mine, who volunteered to be our first test subject and scan himself 🙂 He bravely entered the cage and took 80 photographs from different angles.
Well… After many attempts, re-adjustments of lights and a few changes of clothing it finally worked. However, at the beginning we had some difficulties with his ears and his hair…
So we had to come up with some kind of solution. We re-adjusted the camera locations again and although it helped with his ears, the hair was still a problem. So in our desperation we brought another test subject who happened to be around. It was some big bald guy…
And the problem was gone 🙂 So we just told Dominik to to change his hair style 🙂 And now we have successfully 3d scanned not one, but two human beings 🙂
Finally, we delivered our Fundamentals of Aerial and Land Photogrammetry ON-LINE Course to Dominik, so he could continue working with photogrammetry on his own.