3D scan of LEGO pieces

[Scrubs]

Hello,

I don't think that this is a subject that is discussed too much here but I think that it could be interesting to start a new thread to share my experience.

When browsing the web a few weeks ago I found the article about a home made scanner from the master of LDraw AKA philo. Not having his knowledge or the time to learn the technic behind the scene I decided to have a look at the off the self scanners. Having played a bit with industrial ones, I was a bit scared of the result I would get with more affordable ones but I still decided to go ahead.

I received mine last week and after a few days of trial, I'm pretty happy even if I still have a lot to explore and learn! I thought it would be interesting to share my experience.

Please find below the workflow I used for the first few pieces that I added to mecabricks. The mesh resulting of the point cloud is very noisy but I did it on purpose as small details are not smoothed away. You have to keep in mind that LEGO parts are very small. This helmet is only 14mm high!

Edited September 1, 2015 by Scrubs

[Philo]

Excellent! Could you detail a bit more the tools used (scanner, sculpting and retopo software)?

[Ordinareo]

Will you try to do some Simpsons pieces?

[fred67]

Wow, fantastic work!

About how long a process is it to get from point cloud to a usable element?

[Scrubs]

Hello,

So I bought the scanner from matterandform. They seem to have a good support and communication channel. Besides, I wanted a native solution for Macos.

For everything else, I use Blender. This free tool is awesome and passed the frustration of the interface, it is a pleasure to use. A week ago I did not know anything about sculpting or retopology.

Simpson head pieces would probably work fine but I don't own any myself.

[Philo]

Nice little thing! And one of these days I'll get through Blender "frustration of the interface" that has prevented me from using it so far. For sculpting I use Meshmixer (also free tool) which I find a delight to use (probably because I'm used to it since its early versions...) but it lacks a retopo tool.

As for the Simpson heads, I guess you could convert back my own LDraw ones?

[Philo]

...was thinking about the noisy scans you have... do you do some surface preparation before scanning? my laser scanner has a tough time with shiny ABS, giving also noisy scans. After trying various kinds of preparation (eg. spraying with chalk paint - but this smudges fine details), I finally settled on talcum powder. I dip the part in talcum, then blow away any excess. This just lives a fine layer (barely visible) of white powder that nicely scatters laser beam and provides much better scans. This is also useful when scanning patterned parts where black areas reflect much less light than clear ones. Now maybe your scanner (though laser based too) uses different principles, and this doesn't apply!

[MinifigureHQ]

Thanks for sharing this, I think we'll be having a lot of fun with this!

[KappaMode]

As far as Lego pieces is quite simple objects without any complex geometry i'm thinking of try a cheap method and scan it using Kinect V2 and special scanning software Artec studio (Trial version, so it's free).

[Drago93]

Great work.

Can you make Thorin's crowned hair headpiece and Dain's helmet? 

[Scrubs]

I actually don't use it that much anymore. This is faster to model/sculpt from photos now that I have the knowledge.

I doubt that the kinect will give you anything good.

[Philo]

4 hours ago, Scrubs said:

I actually don't use it that much anymore. This is faster to model/sculpt from photos now that I have the knowledge.

Do you manage to directly sculpt organic shapes like wigs? Wow! But I agree that 3D scan is far from a panacea since it needs a lot of massaging to get something smooth with a reasonably low poly count.

Quote

I doubt that the kinect will give you anything good.

So do I. AFAIK precision/resolution is much too low for the tiny LEGO parts.

[Scrubs]

Yes I sculpt with Blender. I still need to improve my skills but it is good enough to do some retopo. I made quite a few hair pieces like this.

There is also another frenchman who made a few with zbrush for mecabricks even without the real pieces. He is really good! It was making the retopo job very easy.

 

Sculpt cannot be used as is anyway. it is way too high poly.