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Amazing LEGO n' milk 3D Scanner 6 Jun 2007
Friedrich Kirschner has built a 3D scanner that's made out of LEGO, a bowl, a webcam and whole load of milk. Seriously.
How does it work? Well, he takes the item he wants to scan and drops it in some milk. Then he takes a shot of it using his webcam. Then he pours in some more milk and takes another shot. Then he pours in some more milk and takes another shot...and so on and so on...until the item is completely submerged. At that point, he measures up the milk in each shot to produce a semi-accurate cross-section outline of the item. And pullling all of these outlines together produces the final 3D image. Confused? Watch the video below and all will become clear:
The only problem, of course, is that the scanned items end up covered in milk. But hey, that's a small price to pay for DIY 3D!
Update: Want to build your own? Instructions are available here.
[via Gizmodo]
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16 comments so far
Fabio Romeo 29 Sep 2007 02:00 PM
Wait, wait, wait. Did he submerged his face in the milk to get that last shot?!?
Elliot 29 Sep 2007 10:17 PM
I'm wondering that too! How did he do the last part.
SirOJ 1 Oct 2007 09:38 AM
got scan?
james b 1 Oct 2007 10:57 AM
I don't get what the point of the lego is?
Zoop 1 Oct 2007 02:39 PM
Because it was easy to construct in Lego and probably because of the use of Mindstorms, which allows you to build cool lil machines that can communicate with a computer, and use webcams and all.
A good example would be one of the dozen's Rubic's Cube solvers, like this one http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=la2LtrQ8k_I
GD 2 Oct 2007 01:37 PM
Very nice idea. I guess now it's time to automate the filling process. I suggest using a tube connected to a container so that when the container is raised, the milk slowly flows into your scanning bed.
Mike 2 Oct 2007 08:01 PM
This is a very clever idea, but there's one issue, it can only scan items that get narrower at the top. For instance, if there was a small cavern, from the top, it would be undetectable. It would be interesting if he could make the device take several scans from different angles and interpret them together.
GD 5 Oct 2007 03:19 PM
Maybe put the device on a spit like axle and bring the milk up to the mid point, then rotate and scan. Then you can lower the object a bit and scan again, rince and repeat.
Jake 8 Oct 2007 03:51 AM
Awesome!
About the last part, he probably just took 1 picture of this face, seeing as it didn't rotate in 3d or look as if there were multiple shots.
Still, really cool!
blah 10 Oct 2007 01:17 AM
Milk is quite expensive to just waste in the region i'm from..is there some sort of white food dye you could just add to water?
meh 10 Oct 2007 09:33 PM
You could always add flour or cornstarch to water to make it opaque if you don't want to use milk.
GD 11 Oct 2007 01:56 AM
Yeah, I think cornstartch would work better than milk to begin with because it wouldn't leave a film behind if you mix it to just right.
jjman 11 Oct 2007 05:10 AM
He should call it the 1/2 an item - milk scanner.
It can never scan the back side of anything.
And reason for the Lego's, zero.
Still a unique idea though
Prefect 13 Oct 2007 09:20 AM
What kind of software did you use for that? was it a blender-plugin or something?
whatever 16 Oct 2007 08:15 AM
jjman- why not turn the object over?
David 3 Nov 2007 11:10 PM
Help, I downloaded the milkscanner program and it runs, I can see video from my camera. Problem is, it won't record. It just won't do anything. Anybody here can help?