From Scan to Printable Mesh Tutorial (Page 1 of 2)

Tutorial Continued ...

Select the new layer.  From the main menu, select Filters/Point Set/Compute Normals for Point sets.  This realigns all the points in the cloud so they all line up coherently and point in the same direction.

In the Dialog box for Compute Normals, do the following:
Click the "Get" button.  This will populate the Viewpoint position values.  In the "Neighbour Num" enter a value larger than 20.  Usually 25-30 is good., then click apply.  Sometimes the this filter will invert all the points in the cloud, but that doesn't really matter, it can be fixed later

Now we need to reconstruct the mesh.  We will use the Surface reconstruction: Poisson filter for this.  Select Filters/PointSet/Surface Reconstruction:Poisson.  In the pop-up box, enter a value from 2-14 on the Octree Depth.  Values below 10 result in a simplified mesh with most of the detail lost.  Higher values give better results.  Values above 14 seem to crash the app.  You can also enter a number from 6-8 in the Solver Divide.  Click Apply

Depending on your PC, this might take a minute or two.  If the machine crashes repeatedly, reduce the Octree value.  When done, a new layer will be created with the new mesh.  Clcik the eye of the previous layer to hide it, turn the light back on so you can see the shading, and select the flat render (it should already be selected by default).

NOTE:
Should you end up with an inverted point cloud (the model is very dark and can't see any detail), the new mesh will also be inverted.  To fix it, follow these steps:

• Click Filters/Selection/Select All, and in the pop-up box just click Apply.  This will select all the faces (they appear in red).

• Click Filters/Normals Curvature & Orientation/Invert Faces Orientation.  In the Pop-up box, the Force Flip check box should already be checked.  If not check it, then click Apply.  This will invert all the faces

• Click Filters/Selection/Select None, and in the pop-up box just click Apply.  The mesh will be deselected and all the faces in the mesh should be properly oriented (see image above).

That's it.  we now need to clean up and enhance our new mesh.  This is best done in MeshMixer.  But this is a tutorial for another time.

Fantastic job - thanks very much.

Thanks so much, pirvan! Exactly what I needed.

Really ?!  I think you need to get your own Hello Kitty Yankees bobblehead and scan it, then follow this tutorial and post it here.

You should be able to find them on eBay for about $40-50

Here is the point cloud of the Hello Kitty model.  I had to remove the mesh that is automatically generated by FreeLSS, but then again, that mesh is not used during the reconstruction described in this tutorial.

So if you guys want to try the tutorial on the actual point cloud used here, have fun!

NOTE:  After the compute normals filter executes, you might end up with an inverted point cloud (the image will look dark).  If that happens, continue with the Poisson reconstruction, the once that is done, follow the instructions at the bottom of post #2 to invert the mesh faces.

Ok, just ran your file through Cloudcompare and the the result was a much smoother looking mesh so I must be using the correct settings for surface reconstruction.
On closer inspection of the point clouds, yours looks much cleaner (less noise) than mine.
Was that PLY file created with the Atlas scanner ?

Yeah, I gave it a go in both but like I say, Meshlab hangs on my laptop if I use an Octree depth higher than 7 so I couldn't really use that to it's full potential.
The results seemed pretty decent with Cloudcompare at Octree 9 or 10.

I would think using a UV laser would give you the best detail you could get from a camera of X megapixels. The issue is that most cameras have a cold and hot filter to block out UV and IR so the camera would need to be modified like my full spectrum camera is.
Of course you would have to calibrate from the cameras view since it convert the UV to visible but I still think UV would be best.

Also by UV I don't mean a purple BD laser, I mean a totally invisible to the naked eye UV laser which I don't believe they have a solid state version of. Most are IR which would also work but with lower detail due to it being beyond the visible red range.

No, just to close my post it was supposed to be a joke.  Actually, I have a NY Yankee Hello Kitty that they gave away at a game in the summer of 2014.

this is only available in 64bit

You can zoom using the mouse scroll wheel. As far as I know there is no undo. There are some really good video tutorials on YouTube also.

Hold the SHIFT key and drag up and down