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tng blueprinting WIP

I wrote a macro that uses advanced algorithms to derive the surface data from photos that are available. This took many hours of work not including the pre-processing of the images.
:eek: Holy Crap! I'd love to know how to do this, if only to be able to get good orthos out of other models.

Good news.....the owner of the original 6ft filming model has contacted me and I'll be flying out with my portable scanning equipment to scan the model inside and out next week. I'll be posting pics of the 3d scan after I take it.
:eek::eek: Double Holy Crap! You have a portable 3D scanner?!? Those things aren't cheap! Even at the large aerospace company that I work at, it nearly takes an act of Congress (literally) to get ahold of one of those. Oh, and THANK YOU for putting up your own time and money to do this and making some of it available to the rest of us. :techman:
 
what model do you want to get orthos out of? If you have a good set of pictures, i'd run it through my macro to see what I can squeeze out of them.

The reason I wrote it is because no accurate set of blueprints exist for the 1701-d and before I had access to the real model, this is the only solution that would have worked and gotten 99.9% accuracy.

I've since used it to reconstruct the Boeing 787 from photos (I wanted to CNC out a large scale model that I could build into a R/C aircraft). I got scary accurate results. I also used it on GM's Aerotrain and also got wonderful results. I'll post some renderings of those 3d models when I have time.

BTW.....if you want to protect your 3d work from being reversed engineered by this method, the only way to do it is to keep the surfaces shiny and super reflective and without its own texture. It makes it almost impossible to derive surface data from those types of images/objects.

What defense contractor do you work for?

The portable 3d scanner I own cost $45K. Its worth it in these situations were it isn't possible to transport the object to a stationary scanner.
 
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what model do you want to get orthos out of? If you have a good set of pictures, i'd run it through my macro to see what I can squeeze out of them.
Thanks for the offer, but I don't have anything specific at the moment. I was actually more interested in the mathematical/geometrical concepts behind it used to generate such data. I guess it's more for my own benefit (the "teach a man to fish" thing), since I've been frustrated in the past by less-than-accurate orthos or perspective pics.

What defense contractor do you work for?
Check your PMs.
 
Scanned the studio model this morning.....I don't have permission from the owner to post pictures of the scan, but he did say I could post information on the surfaces. I've reconstructed surface natives of the disk section and have discovered that the loft ellipses used to construct the disk section are all different, before I had thought they were the same, but just scaled down. This has been the biggest surprise so far.(makes sense why I couldn't get my first model attempt to fit the orthos) Every blueprint/model that has been made to date has been incorrect in this aspect. Volume of the saucer section not counting the deduction from the cobra head section merge or addition or differences of bridge and indentation deductions is 7602 cubic inches, which is almost 33 gallons of liquid (half the volume of a normal bathtub)!!!!!! I checked my calculations about 10 times not believing it, but its true. I even checked the calculation in 3 different modeling programs thinking something was wrong. By the way, my photometric reconstruction estimated the volume to be 7601.5, which I was blown away by previously and figured something was wrong in the photometric reconstruction.

Its really interesting to see the surface irregularities and imperfections in the original model. I can even see the "bondo" surface work they did to blend the cobra head neck into the saucer. I'll ask the owner if he will allow me to post non-ortho low res pictures of my surface reconstruction so everyone can enjoy it.

Over time, since the Christie's auction, the engine pylons have continued to sag. Making the engines not level. I will correct this in my 3d model before I make my physical version. The owner also commissioned me to make him fiberglass replacement pylons to replace the sagging warped ones. It will be fun actually getting to do restoration work on the original model:)

This will be my last post on this thread since its kind of getting off the original topic, I'll open a new one once I have an update.
 
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