Only 90s Kids Will Appreciate This Prototype

May 24, 2017 by Brian Benchoff 34 Comments

[Madox] is a trackball user, which is fine; we at Hackaday respect and appreciate those who live alternative lifestyles. As you would expect, there aren’t many makes and models of trackballs being sold, and [Madox] wanted something ergonomic. A DIY solution was necessary, but how to you model something ‘ergonomic’ before printing it out? Floam, apparently.

Floam is a sticky, moldable goo originally sold as the follow-up to Nickelodeon’s Gak in the early 1990s. It consists of styrofoam pellets held together with a colored binder that doesn’t leave a mess and doesn’t dry out. While the Nickelodeon version is lost to the sands of time, a Floam-like substance is available at any toy store. [Madox] picked up a few blister packs and began modeling his ideal trackball.

With the proper shape in hand, [Madox] needed a way to get this design into a computer. Photogrammetry is the solution, and while earlier experiments with Autodesk Catch were successful, Autodesk has morphed and rebranded their photogrammetry software into Autodesk ReMake. Turing a pile of styrofoam balls into a 3D model is as simple as taking a bunch of pictures and uploaded to Autodesk’s ‘cloud’ service.

In just a few minutes, a proper 3D mesh arrived from the Autodesk mothership, and [Madox] took to importing this model into Fusion 360, fiddling with chamfers, and eventually got to the point where a 3D printer was necessary. It took a few revisions, but now [Madox] has a custom designed trackball that was perfectly ergonomic.

Using Photogrammetry To Design 3D Printed Parts

February 12, 2016 by Brian Benchoff 33 Comments

[Stefan] is building a fixed wing drone, and with that comes the need for special mounts and adapters for a GoPro. The usual way of creating an adapter is pulling out a ruler, caliper, measuring everything, making a 3D model, and sending it off to a 3D printer. Instead of doing things the usual way, [Stefan] is using photogrammetric 3D reconstruction to build a camera adapter that fits perfectly in his plane and holds a camera securely.

Photogrammetry requires taking a few dozen pictures with a camera, using software to turn these 2D images into a 3D model, and building the new part from that model. The software [Stefan] is using is Pix4D, a piece of software that is coincidentally used to create large-scale 3D models from drone footage.

With the 2D images turned into a 3D model, [Stefan] imported the .obj file into MeshLab where the model could be cropped, smoothed, and the file size reduced. From there, creating the adapter was as simple as a little bit of OpenSCAD and sending the adapter model off to a 3D printer.

Just last week we saw photogrammetry used in another 3D object scanner. The results from both of these projects show real promise for modeling, especially with objects that are difficult to measure by hand.

Super Detailed 3d Scans With Photogrammetry

February 3, 2016 by Gerrit Coetzee 25 Comments

Photogrammetry is a real word, and [shapespeare] built himself a nice setup to take high-res 3d scans using it. A good set of images for photogrammetry are: in sharp focus, well lit, precisely indexed, and have a uniform background. The background was handled by a 3d printed stand and some copier paper. To get even lighting he used four adjustable LED lamps from Ikea.

In order to precisely index the object, he built an indexing set-up with an Arduino and a stepper motor (housed in the, self proclaimed, most elegant of 3d printed enclosures). The Arduino rotates the platform a measured increment, and then using [Sebastian Setz]’s very neat IR camera control library, snaps a photo. This process repeats until multiple photos of the object have been taken.

Once the photos have been taken, they need to be run through a photogrammetry processor. [shapespeare] uses Agisoft Photoscan, but says Autodesk Memento and 123d Catch do pretty well too. After all this work it appears that [shapespeare] used his new powers to 3d print a giant decking screw. Cool.