After the launch of Volumental, a cloud-based 3D scanning service, we had questions. Questions about how the service can and will be used, and where it’s headed in the future. We spoke with Ernest Ang, Business & Marketing at Volumental.
Fabbaloo: What is a depth camera and how do you get one? Which specific cameras and manufacturers are supported by Volumental?
Ernest Ang: A good example of a depth camera is the Xbox Kinect, which uses the camera to locate you in a room when you play video games. Any OpenNI-compliant depth camera works with our software such as Primesense, Xbox and Asus.
Fabbaloo: Does the service provide automatic hole-filling for partial scans? It is extraordinarily difficult to capture a “whole” scan and we’re wondering if your service fills that need?
Ernest Ang: If successfully funded, our service will automatically close holes for partial scans.
Fabbaloo: What happens with stray background noise that produces junk artifacts? Are they automatically clipped off?
Ernest Ang: Our service will be able to eliminate background objects and artifacts and isolate the object that you want to print.
Fabbaloo: Model adjustment: can you rotate, auto-level, crop and scale the model? If cropping, do you fill in the void?
Ernest Ang: This something that we will definitely be working on while developing the app, and is in the pipeline for a good reach funding goal if we get funded!
Fabbaloo: How do you handle the export of color models?
Ernest Ang: We export texture mapped meshes. The object format, which we are using, is well known and widely supported for importing into just about any 3D-modelling program. The colors are stored in png images and are loaded along with the geometry.
It seems that Volumental intends on covering all the bases, or at least the basic ones. If you’re interested in checking them out, head over to their Kickstarter page.
Via Kickstarter
