I am a new Mini 2 owner struggling to get comfortable with the Mini 2 and RevoScan 5.0. The included bust was super easy to scan, but I have so far not found anything that is even remotely as simple
Most of my needs are for reverse engineering and the parts are typically low on features and always have some kind of symmetry. So far I would have been much better of just drawing the parts in Fusion 360 without scanning first.
I accept these are not the easiest cases so I am trying all the tricks I have read on this forum, using the marker mat, adding bits of pieces to the parts to break symmetry, putting marker stickers on (disaster on small parts without flat surfaces), spraying with AESUB, turning off the room lights.
I have ordered the tilting table to hopefully make re-orienting a bit easier. I also hope the tilting table is synchronized with the scanner so motion smear is less of an issue.
Thoughts on RevoScan:
Every time I select a file the menu selection reverts to one click processing. It would be much more convenient if it just staid at the last selection.
In many of the processes it would be really nice (time saving!) if it was possible to select multiple files to be processed.
Every time I go into fusion the point distance changes to some new value, why is this? It would be more convenient if a previously selected value was kept for a project. I dont understand this process very well I suspect. From what I read, and the lastest instruction video, for maximum control and accuracy during manual processing one should choose standard and a suitably low point distance. In my case < 0.1
The feature merge is pretty bad at aligning, I have started playing with CloudCompare and its alignment is massively better. It should be possible to have a way to do a coarse alignment by rotating the scans and placing them on top of each other, and then press a button for the fine alignment in RevoScan.
The marker merge is a bit of a mystery as well, I try to select matching points, but in a point cloud that is generally pretty hard without some computational help to do the fine alignment. So far I have had little luck with this method.
Pretty sure I cannot see any difference on the point cloud isolation function when choosing different percentages. Does this work as it should?
There should be way to do bulk export to 3rd party tools such as CloudCompare
Please add SpaceMouse support - feels like I am missing a limb here
Any advice is welcome, I still have high hopes for one day being able to do a good hi-res scan with the Mini 2
For the alignment thereâs no good features. Maybe you can put plasticine or something on it for better features? @PUTV is a specialist for such thingâs, she may can give some tips and tricks for that.
I am playing a little with CloudCompare and its clearly a better choice, however it also has quite a bit more of a learning curve
One thing I am curious about though is the minimum size of an alignment feature in RevoScan (if it uses âfeaturesâ per se). It would be nice to know how the feature alignment works so that one could create optimal conditions, beyond âadd some puttyâ
There is definitely still some room for improvement and revopoint is working on it.
I hope the improvements will come in the near future, Iâm lso already waiting for it! But in this price segment I wonât find a better Scanner/Software combo.
In this case you canât align this scans because you are actually missing the sides , you need at least 20% overlapped and at least 3 matching points ( features ) that exist on both scans .
Cloud Compare will not align it better either since you still missing the side scan , remember you need 3 angles of a scan not 2 , what you can do is secure the object vertically , scan one rotation and use it to merge all the points from front and back together with the scans you already made .
The object was actually stood vertically and scanned as suggested, the two depicted scans have at least 20% overlap (more like 70%) as well as identifiable features (holes in this case). The second scan is of the object flipped to the other edge and the merge is mainly to get a scan with all four sides closed.
The alignment fails in RevoScan, but succeeds with both CloudCompare and Meshlab. I found that my workflow is almost certainly going to involve CloudCompare and/or Meshlab as it also allows me to prune/trim the aligned clouds before any final merge, keeping the scan details clean.
I have a question of what constitutes a âfeatureâ though? Any edge, line, protrusion? What is minimum size (area, height)?
And this is a really dumb question - Does 20% overlap mean that any scans need to cover 20% of the larger scans surface? So if I am building a bigger scan from many small ones I will have to be careful of the ordering as adding a small scan to a big one will not work , but stitching small ones to each other and incrementally building multiple bigger to merge is fine?
I still like the RevoScan for cleaning the point cloud though, nice interface and good results (apart from overlap currently being broken?). Being a relative newbie to scanning (I have tried some photogrammetry) I find the revopoint software a promising start that just needs a little refinement to be quite enjoyable. The opensource options are all far too much for most use cases.
Feature is automatic recognizing of unique feature on the merged objects , it require to have at least the same 3 features on each object , it also donât like much symmetry as it easy confuse the algorithms.
See it like a face recognition.
There are not specific rules regarding the size, but the distance depending of the scanner FOV size , how smaller the FOV how closer the features need to be , in MINI situation around 3 cm apart at max .
The scanner projects a pattern on the scanned surface and any distortions created using the features are used as tracking point .
Cloud Compare is superior in this case and I do use it in most cases as well as it offers more than just simple alignment.
You also asked early about marker points .
When you use marker point mode and markers (stickers) the algorithms ignores the objectâs features and symmetry , and it tracking only the markers as features, you need minimal 3 markers to be visible at the same time while scanning .
You donât need to stick the markers on your object , you can simply stick it on any dark surface like for example black plastic turntable or simple black garbage back , put the object on top and scan it .
Regarding cleaning , it is recommended to clean overlapped points and lose points .
Check the Tutorial section in the forum , there is lots of great stuff to learn from .
@grukx As of today, RevoScan does not have a marker merge function. There is one that they call marker merge but really itâs a point to point merging mode. I already made a feature request in this post Perhaps it would be worthwhile for you to mention this under my post, so that the revopoint team can see that many people are missing that feature.
For a real marker merge abilities the software and hardware firmware need to be rewritten what really will not happen.
The terminology is the way it is , changing it now will only create confusion since lots of tutorials are referring to marker mode âŚ
I know that the dev team is working on the option that allows you to place your own marker on the scanned surface and use it as reference , for that reason it is called market mode as this function was once available.
Actually to be clear the Feature mode uses point to point algorithms, semi automatic function .
Hopefully "marker " selection will be available soon as I am waiting for this for so long already myself âŚ
Picking up on grukxâs post, I have recently bought a Miraco for my business, as a tool to complement my technology business, not to âplay around withâ I have had it for two weeks and practising for hours at a time and of all the scans I have attempted, only two have been acceptable. One was a black chess piece, a knight with sharp edges, and I was very impressed. The second was a very colourful, round, Russian doll. Both were done in feature mode, and in two scans, then merged. However, since then, everything has failed. Am I asking too much to simply be able to scan the top and the bottom of an object that doesnât have too many features and has some symmetry? Just normal, everyday items. Take a simple coffee mug for example. Not enough features to track correctly, but does have a rim, a handle and a top and some writing on the side. I have scanned it standing on the TT for one revolution with table markers for tracking, saved the scan turned the mug up side down and repeated the process. Cleaned the file and still the merging fails every time. Either it matches the top to the bottom so one scan is upside down, or I end up with two handles. The position of each is random with each attempt. That would point to it being not really possible. Manual matching just doesnât seem accurate enough even if I was able to get it close. I even watched your early video PUTV where you scanned a coffee cup in marker mode, doing exactly as I did, and hey presto it merged perfectly! So in your case your cup must have had enough features to merge. It seems to me as though if you need markers on the TT to track it correctly, then it doesnât have enough features to merge. SO how on earth can I simply get a model of the top and bottom of an object? I am doing conservancy work on artifacts that cannot have markers on them, so IS there a way, or do I need to accept that this isnât possible. If thatâs the case, then the business case for buying a scanner for any real work is looking pretty poor. What would be great is to have tutorials on scanning hard to scan items, rather that making it all look so easy. The only revoscan video I could find was titled âhow to scan all around a modelâ the model was huge jagged rock!
Sorry for the lengthy post, but I am close to regretting the decision to buy this scanner, and certainly canât offer any sort of scanning service that people would be impressed with.
You see , a simple objects are not really a simple to scan objects , 3D scanners were created to scan difficult to recreate object , and structure light scanners relays on object features to be able to scan it .
So if you deal with simple objects you need to use marker mode or add additional objects around it .
You home will deal here also with problems like merging of simple objects because of lack of features you canât do it especially with coffee cups and things like that .
Try to get full scan as much as possible .
Scanning require practice , finding your own workflow with many different objects, develope your own techniques and problem solving .
Itâs not one button click solution .
Keep practice and finding your way , start with more complex objects to get grip on things and put the simple objects on later .
Hi PUTV, yes, I understand that simple objects are the most difficult, but I sort of assumed there might be a work flow that would solve the problem, but there isnât really, not without adding markers to the actual object, which with museum artifacts isnât really not possible. Today I did some experiments and got results that surprised me. I surrounded the mug with other objects that feature scan very easily and made two separate feature scans. One with the mug up one way, then a new scan just turning the mug upside down. No tracking losses for both scans, so, obviously the additional pieces were doing the job of helping the tracking. The merge result surprised me because all the outer objects that were not moved between the two scans merged ok, but the mug still had two handles! My impression, obviously wrong was once three or more features were found to be the same, then those points would be merged, but moving the other mesh points relative to those so the mug would have been moved by the same amount as scan 2 was moved to merge with scan one. I am talking about automatic feature merging here, not manual marker mode. So it seems that isnât the case and that ALL points need to have a âmateâ on the two scans. Manual merging probably works as I thought, but is nowhere near accurate enough. So another piece of the puzzle better understood. Pity, because I thought I was on to something. Maybe, when you introduce a proper âmarkerâ alignment mode were the user can add three markers to the surface and select those it might work. I have also learned that any artificial features that I add to the mug need to have some depth, sticking blue tape on the body made no difference at all to whether it would merge, or even track. Even when say 15 or 20 pieces are added. I also found that while a very bold colour pattern will make tracking better, it doesnât help with merging. So, comes back to my original point, that if it doesnât track by itâs self without and other aids, then it isnât ever going to merge. So, after many hours of experiments, I still canât scan the top and bottom of a mug! Makes you think doesnât it???
If you moved the mug after the first scan then the surrounding objects will be wrong for any merging. They need to be treated as if the are one object with the mug for aligning. If they are not then before merging all surrounding objects must be removed. Tape works real well for helping tracking if you make it a feature by crumpling it up some or letting it hang off and only attaching a small part of it. Blue tack works good also by making marble sized or slightly smaller balls and sticking them on like markers. Which ever orientation the scanned object moves to any features you want to utilize must be able to move with it and not move from there location. Markers work good for tracking but donât create enough of a feature or give dimension similar to just flat tape as far as merging goes. Also sometimes a person needs a third scan of something like the side that encompasses both top and bottom so that it can orient the other two scans. I like to call it the merge orienting scan. Also sometimes you canât just merge all at once but rather merge 2 that you know will merge then join the 3rd or others in afterwards to build up the model. The software is âdumbâ to a certain degree and one must understand how to get it to understand. Teach it or show it what to do.
I was talking about Markers around the object , not in the object for scanning , but this will not change the fact that the merge function relay on features in Revo Scan and all other software.
The feature merge can work but this one way or another require features as well.
The only option for you is to download free Cloudy Compare software and align it manually .
I tried to get them to behave as one object by grouping them very close together, actually touching. I scanned them as if it was just a very complicated structure. But, as I mentioned, when merging all the objects, even though grouped, behaved as individual objects and all of them except the mug merged fine. Which would suggest that simply adding objects to the TT for help with tracking doesnât help in the slightest for merging. So it seems there is not a simple strategy that is completely non invasive, i.e. sticking some type of marker to the piece. I have Geomagic design X and I can download Cloud Compare. Yet more software to learn!
I am either not understanding how you went about this or you are not understanding what I was saying. If your surrounding âtrack helpingâ objects are left the same for each scan but the main object with less features is moved for each scan then the merge will align to the feature rich objects or âtrack helping objectsâ. The main object will just be in the midst of things with whatever orientation it was for each scan. So for example if you scan a mug and surround it with say some crumpled paper, then when you flip the mug you would have to flip the paper also and have it floating in the air at exact same spot it was without moving even a tenth of a millimeter. Impossible to do. So to get top and bottom of a mug you would need to scan top and bottom and also lay it on its side and get a scan that goes around it showing both top and bottom and at least part of the handle. The side scan can just be half of the side but needs to show part of the top, bottom, and handle. Then to merge all three you must make sure to first remove surrounding objects or there changing positions would affect the merge of the mug. Any object in a scan that changes position, even the smallest amount will throw off merges, even in cloud compare, so if things changed then they must be eliminated. Scanning takes lots of forethought and planning to get things right. Sometimes it may take many tries to get it figured out with complex objects, especially ones you canât simply move on a turntable.
Hi Brandon, no, we are both understanding the problem. I am just proving you are right and documenting the problem for others to follow, so all good. I appreciate you taking the time to comment. I did try the 3 scan process with the mug on its side, but the same issue. The mug just doesnât have enough features and there is no way around that it seems, until true marker mode merging comes along and even then it might not work in this case. My next trial is to try and stand off small markers from the mug so that they are easy to remove in post process and I am sure this will work. Just to say, I have absolutely no interest in doing anything with the mug! But I need to know for reference what is possible and what is not. All good knowledge for everybody on the forum.
