mammoth skull in garage

[Thomas Cox]

I am trying to 3D a mammoth skull that has been stored in a garage.  I have taken multiple images and run them thru photoscan multiple times, but too no avail.  The best I have been able to get is a sparse point cloud.  However, once I run a dense point cloud nothing shows up.  I think I am having some sizing issues.  The only lighting I have is when the garage door is open, which means I have some shading on the back side of the skull.  The skull is also upside down, which means there are some concave surfaces underneath.  The skull is highly fragmented and heavy and therefore can not be moved.  When it is moved it will be in multiple pieces.  This is a once in lifetime chance before the skull is destroyed and boxed up.  Any ideas?

I can submit photos if needed.

[chrisd]

Portable lighting will help a lot. If there are no outlets, there are many LED choices that run on batteries that are extremely bright.

[Dave Martin]

Thomas,

Good suggestion from Chris, you may need to use some form of diffuser as well. If you can procure sufficient artificial lights, would suggest you consider closing the garage door so light levels don't change as clouds pass etc., that will also help with maintaining constant colour temperature. Don't forget to lay some scale rulers on the ground around the skull - ideally something like a large roofing square with some divisions highlighted, so you have orthogonal axes.

As this is not just a PhotoScan query, would suggest you also try asking in the wider photogrammetry arena - one place I would suggest is in the Cultural Heritage Imaging forum.

Dave