whats the best set-up

[tbone]

Hi everyone,

I'm new to the 3d scan world and have recently purchased the Photoscan software.  I've been playing around a bit and am getting varied results.  The main thing I need it for at the moment is for human head portrait scans.  I've tried a few set-ups with various lighting and and amount of shots but seem to get different results each time.  Can someone give any advice on the absolute best set-up for this?  Here a few questions I can think of:

- What sort of lighting? Natural daylight, on camera flash, ring flash, static flash, multiple continuos controlled light?  Is it best to try and just light the subject, or the surrounding environment as well?

- I'm currently using a Canon 5D mkii, should I be shooting RAW (this seemed to confuse the software) or jpeg?

- Is it best to shoot simultaneously with 2 or more cameras?  If so, whats the process of shooting and then loading?  Do you mount the 2 cameras together and control so they shoot simultaneously? Do you then move around the subject to be scanned taking "pairs" of images and then load into the software as normal?

- I saw on another site (ten24) that they project noise onto the subject.  Does anyone else use this technique?  What are the benefits and how exactly is this achieved, I'm assuming a normal digital projector projecting a noise layer made in photoshop?

- Does the software need any points of reference in the background?  Is it best to have a completely plain background when shooting or a more complex surrounding?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

[Alexey Pasumansky]

Hello tbone,

Concerning the RAW data please refer to the following topic: http://www.agisoft.ru/forum/index.php?topic=80.msg281#msg281
As it is a closed format PhotoScan supports .CR2 files only based on our experience and opened information. So we recommend to convert .CR2 files to JPEG or TIFF format using camera-native software before processing in PhotoScan.

The processing workflow of the images taken by synchronized cameras does not differ of the standard workflow. And in general several synchronized cameras are useful when shooting moving objects.

Background could be useful if PhotoScan doesn't find enough points on the object's surface (for example untextured or shiny objects) and it could be taken into account at Align Photos stage. Plain background is good if you want to mask everything but the object or even it is not required in case of plain and untextured background.