3D Scans - Turntable Renders

Hello, everybody! I’ve not been very active on the forums lately, but that’s because I’ve got a lot of projects in the works! I’ve just finished one of them, a guide on scanning props and other objects using a turntable. You can find the guide here:

Additionally, I’ve rendered out higher resolution views of the scans from the video for you to enjoy. The soldier and basic rock scans are processed at Medium quality (the best my aging computer can manage), while the seashell and more complex rock are processed at High quality (thanks to Wishgranter from the Agisoft forums). I’ll post the photos in the following post.

If you have any questions, feel free to ask!


Here are the “Medium” quality renders. I had a good time playing with the lights in my little “studio” in Blender.

And here are the “High” quality scans. Sorry that there are no textures, I had a hard time just importing these models into Blender!

I <3 agisoft. great video!

I’ve personally used it to scan shoes. It’s a pretty mind blowing program when it all comes together like it should.


I am curious about your personal end-use of these scans. Seems to me that they’re often so high-poly that to use them as assets in a scene can often be as labor intensive as modeling from scratch to get the scanned mesh optimized.

Also, the UV map that Photoscan generates is so fragmented and jig-sawed (i just coined that term for this). I would love it if the UV map was a little more universally generated . . . something that could be used for other assets.

the 3D printing applications are obvious if you’re looking to duplicate something, or model something to contour to something you’ve scanned.

Very good tutorial i have some proble to understand spoken english but i’ll try…burp halfway video is the touch of an artist!

nvrmt - Thanks! Your shoes look great! Very clean models.
You’re also correct, I’m sure there are plenty of instances where hand modeling will produce sufficient results in a comparable time. I’m a terrible modeler, however. If it’s more complicated than the default cube, I’m hopeless!
About UV mapping, I believe you can create your retopologized model, UV map it and then import it back into PhotoScan to generate the textures. In the settings it will allow you to specify that PhotoScan use the existing UVs to create the texture map. I haven’t tried it myself yet, but have seen other people getting good results with it.

marcoso - Thank you! If you would like, I can post the script here for you. Hopefully Google will do a decent job translating into your native language!

If i can read i have no problem but when i hear only i can understand a word over 20…

Didn’t know that by adjusting contrast you could have better result, i thought Photoscan did that “in automatic” if needed. If i will have problems with little alignment points i will try that :slight_smile:
For masking i use Blender compositor…it take more o less 5 seconds each 16mpix image. With compositor you can do also focus masking to limit blurry textures, altough i only did some tests with it.
The pain about Photoscan is when you spend half hour shooting, half hour hand masking (as sometimes is the only practical way) and then after half hour processing you realize the photos you have are not enough for a decent result. As i did a lot of times.

What i am missing in your results is a 360 (all 3 axis) scan of the seashell :wink:

Very very cool! :slight_smile:

Great Tutorial and great Results! Love it! burp
It’s easy to follow and really entertaining, watched it from start to end although I don’t even plan on doing something similar.

Thanks for taking the time to make this tutorial, James. It is well planned and executed and thus easy to follow. I’m not really sure if the two non subject related interludes are really advantageous … But anyway, you’ve achieved stunning results with this scan technique. Amazingly detailed rocks and textures :eek:

marcoso - Ah, of course! I will include the script at the bottom of this post (It is 99% accurate to my spoken narration in the video).

mik1190 - Yes, I initially thought PhotoScan would automatically increase contrast itself, but now I don’t think this is the case. I’ve noticed a dramatic increase in point cloud quality when using very contrasty source images. I know what you mean about all the time and work required! The last thing you want to do is invest so much time only to find you didn’t shoot enough photos in the first place. Sometimes what I will do on complex scans is shoot “preliminary” images and process without any masks, just to see where the problem areas will be. Then when I go back to shoot my true photos, I feel more confident that I’m not overlooking anything, which is very easy to do!
Maybe one day I will revisit the sea shell to capture both sides!

ivaydesign - Thank you! I’m very glad you enjoyed it!

TheAlmightyF - That is very encouraging to hear, thank you! Even though my channel isn’t really a tutorial channel, I really wanted to do a good job on these videos. It’s my hope that they remain quick, informative, and not too boring to watch. It’s great to hear that you enjoyed it!


Here is the script for anyone who would like it:

Good day, and welcome back. In our last video, we covered the basics of shooting images for PhotoScan. In this installment, things get a little more advanced as we begin using turntables and masking our images.

Using a turntable means that instead of moving the camera around the subject, the camera remains stationary and the subject rotates. In my opinion, this is the most effective way to scan, because it eliminates motion blur even when using a very slow shutter.

I bought my turntable on Amazon from a company called LapWorks. It’s 16" in diameter and can support 200 pounds. However, if your object is light enough, a standard kitchen turntable, or Lazy Susan, is more than adequate. You may even already have one in your kitchen or refrigerator. In fact, if you’re scanning something small, I would recommend using a smaller turntable, as it will allow you to place your camera closer to the object.

Lighting for turntables- Whether you choose to use natural, ambient light outside, or artificial lights inside, it is vitally important that the lighting is extremely flat. From the camera’s point of view, there should be no evident light source, and no shadows. Otherwise, you can end up with very strange looking errors when PhotoScan attempts to align your images.

In this video, I’m using CFL softboxes from Ebay, but you can also try using a light tent, or even just good, old-fashioned shade.

Okay, we have our turntable and our lights, let’s shoot something!

I’ve marked off 10 degree increments on my turntable, and put up a solid background, so that PhotoScan doesn’t pick up any points besides the subject - for this example, I don’t want to worry about masking.

Starting simple, we’ll begin with the Default Rock. Stick it on a stand so we can shoot high, mid and low angles. I’m also using a cabled shutter trigger to eliminate motion blur. To save time, I’m only shooting half the rock.

In a few minutes, I have three rows of 18 photos each. Before bringing these images into PhotoScan, I’ll use Adobe Camera Raw to make adjustments. I’ll create two versions of each image- one set will have the Contrast pushed way up, as far as I can go without clipping my highlights or crushing my shadows. The other set will be the opposite, setting contrast to 0. Also be sure that your white balance is the same across all images. I like using Bridge and Camera Raw because it’s very quick and easy to make changes to multiple images at once.

Now we’ll open PhotoScan. Open the high-contrast images and align them. Even with just the sparse point cloud generated, we already have a decent looking result. If your scan already looks like what it’s supposed to be at this stage, you’re gonna have a good time.

After further processing and mesh generation at medium quality, we get this result. Even with only half the rock scanned, and no masking at all, we have a pretty good recreation. By replacing our high-contrast images with the second, neutral set we made, we can create a natural looking texture map for the model. Here is our final result.

So- moving on. Say you want to scan something more complicated than a rock. Masking can help. I’d rather gouge my eyes out with corn holders than to mask images by hand, so we’ll want to automate the process. There are two ways to do this- the first is to set up a chromakey background, and generate your masks in an external program. I’m using Keylight in After Effects to do this. When you export your black and white masks, be sure to give them the {filename }_mask suffix. For example, IMG_1234.jpg would have a corresponding mask image called IMG_1234_mask.png.

The second option is to use the “from background” method. This works by comparing your source image to another image, where the subject has been removed and only your background is photographed. PhotoScan compares the images to determine what is different, and generates a mask to ignore what it believes is the background. Because we’re shooting on a turntable, and the camera is locked down, we can use the same blank background image many shots. You only need to shoot another background image when you move the position of the camera. Fiddling with the tolerance may be necessary- for the shots of this soldier, I had the tolerance set to 6.

Both methods allow you to mask a large set of images quickly.

What if you want to scan something very small? Here is a sea shell, approximately 2" in diameter. To begin, I switch to a smaller turntable, and place the shell on a stand with a bit of poster tack to keep it from moving. Then I use a diopter on my 50mm lens to allow the camera to focus much closer. I’m shooting at f/22 to increase my depth of field.

Again, I’m quickly shooting just three rows of images, without any masking. In the final result, you can see that we’ve captured much of the detail in the shell. It is possible to capture even smaller objects- it all depends on your camera gear and the number of images you shoot.

Now let’s take everything we’ve learned, and combine it into a single scan. We’ll be using the Advanced Rock for this. First, put it on a stand so we can get upper, mid and lower angles. I’ve hot glued the rock onto the stand. Next, we’ll shoot our source images against the chromakey background. Because our screen isn’t big enough for all our shots, we’ll also shoot a background image for the high angles. This means our masks will be generated using a combination of green screen keying and the “from background” method. After processing our image sets, creating the masks, aligning the images and generating the final mesh and texture, we have it- a 20,000,000 vertice mesh that’s ready to cripple your framerate.

There you have it, the basics of shooting objects on a turntable. A big thank you to Wishgranter for generating the high quality sea shell and advanced rock meshes! You can find him over on the PhotoScan forums, which I recommend you visit anyway. There are a lot of helpful members there with many tips and tricks to share.

Our next guide will focus on shooting and generating environments with PhotoScan. So stay tuned, and I will see you in the next video!

James very impressive results!
I see the video and you made improve a lot your diction, this more clear, and you look more optimistic!
continue with your great work, and much succes friend!:yes:

People have been doing some pretty nice stuff with photogrammetry these days. Nice job.

Thanks a lot!

Jose - Thank you! I am feeling a little more comfortable filming myself now, and I also moved the microphone a little further back. I think it was much too close in the prior video. Thank you for your encouraging words!

GraphiX - Thank you! You’re correct, I’ve noticed quite a lot of people are using PhotoScan now, as well as other photogrammetry and scanning applications.

marcoso - You’re welcome! If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to ask!

woooooh mind blowing - have to take a closer look after sleeping!

Thanks, Scott! I’ve been using the latest version of PhotoScan, and it’s noticeably faster!

Sweet! Photoscan is fro 3dmax right? so only windows :frowning: