I posted an invention!

[MR2 Fan]

I just found out about this website called Quirky.com, where you can submit even basic ideas for an idea or invention, people vote on them and the popular ones might get made.

I had hit a bit of a brick wall with my idea and decided to give this a go. I have invention ideas about once every few weeks. Several of them never get past the drawing board, and this one did, but some hardware issues stopped me.

I'm hoping this will help, so please go to this website, and VOTE BITCHEZ!!!!

360º Camera Array/ 3D scanner

https://s3.amazonaws.com/kore/production/attachments/assets/615031/four65/attachment20140326-24236-g5kz4w.jpg?1395809516


https://www.quirky.com/invent/1020430/action/vote/query/sort=trending&categories=all

[thesameguy]

That CAD drawing doesn't do your contraption justice! I had to look at the IRL photos to understand its scale and what it was doing! :up:

[MR2 Fan]

Thanks....I thought the CAD model was a bit cleaner than my makeshift contraption....but whatever gets the point across.

[MR2 Fan]

is this animation better?

http://i660.photobucket.com/albums/uu329/techno9991/scannerring1_zps71b22ae0.gif

[thesameguy]

Yes, there we go! :)

[Crazed_Insanity]

So what happens if you win the election..., then they'll develop your idea?

[MR2 Fan]

So what happens if you win the election..., then they'll develop your idea?

it isn't an election, apparently the ones that get a good amount of votes can come up to a committee and they decide if they like the idea, and then develop it, while sharing the profits

[Kchrpm]

Sounds like a great solution for your situation :up:

[MR2 Fan]

Update:

Although I posted the idea to twitter, FB, here and a 3D printing G+ group, at about 5 hours left, I have 8 up-votes and 1 down-vote. I'm not really surprised, I think it wasn't clear enough for people and 3D scanning isn't a popular idea yet.

Once the week-long "campaign" is over, I'll give my synopsis of the quirky.com experience.

[MR2 Fan]

Its been a long time, but I decided that I might re-visit this idea....minus going through quirky.

I had killed it earlier for a few reasons...basically the problem was getting an array setup where it can take photos from multiple cameras at the same time was very difficult. I had worked on using different setups like security camera programs on windows, but windows for some reason does not recognize more than 2 webcams typically and I haven't found a workaround. Maybe macs are different?

The alternative was to set up a separate processor for the device somehow and capture pictures, but I am not a programmer...hmm...

[thesameguy]

Nothing prevents Windows from using multiple acquisition devices - it doesn't really care how many things are sending data. But you will need to stitch the results together, either via hardware or software and that's not trivial. Photoshop has an auto-stitch feature, but I'm not sure how good it would be stitching in three dimensions or what you'd ultimately do with a flattened 3D image. However, based on the answer to that question and considering the complexity of stitching images, you might find the easier approach is spinning the object.

[MR2 Fan]

Nothing prevents Windows from using multiple acquisition devices - it doesn't really care how many things are sending data. But you will need to stitch the results together, either via hardware or software and that's not trivial. Photoshop has an auto-stitch feature, but I'm not sure how good it would be stitching in three dimensions or what you'd ultimately do with a flattened 3D image. However, based on the answer to that question and considering the complexity of stitching images, you might find the easier approach is spinning the object.

No, stitching isn't a problem...there's a few software choices that already do that, it's called photogrammetry. AutoCAD's 123D Catch is one of them.

Windows might not care how many devices are sending but it still only recognizes 2 webcams...so unless I can figure out how to get it to recognize 6 to 10 cameras for photos, not sure how to proceed.

[thesameguy]

Perhaps I didn't write clearly. But Catch doesn't support acquisition and Windows doesn't support more than two webcams. Clearly, Catch and webcams are not the answer.

[MR2 Fan]

Perhaps I didn't write clearly. But Catch doesn't support acquisition and Windows doesn't support more than two webcams. Clearly, Catch and webcams are not the answer.

Right, so its just a matter of having multiple cameras taking a photo and storing it somehow. once that is done, the catch program can do its work.