Pi 3D scanner: a DIY body scanner

The blog’s rather late today but definitely worth the wait we think. It’s an jaw-droppingly brilliant Raspberry Pi-driven 3D scanner by Richard . He used it recently to scan over 200 people at the Groningen Makerfaire with spectacular results like this: Richard’s site has details on recent events (including the best party ever: a scanning party) and instructions on how to build your own. It uses 40 Raspberry Pis and cameras but Richard says that he has had impressive results with 12 Pis. Setting up the scanner. Each of the ‘arms’ has three Pis and camera mounted top, middle and bottom. Of course once you’ve been scanned you can be 3D printed: An early sample taken with 21 cameras. Notice the lettering on the shirt. There are lots of 3D scanners popping up at the moment. The standout thing about Richard’s build is that the scan is instant—the Pi cameras take simultaneous photos—so there’s no standing still in a ker-ayzee pose whilst lasers or Kinects wibble about doing their thing. But best of all is that you can build your own 3D scanner and then print yourself. For a science fiction-brewed child of the 70s like myself this is a deeply magical thing and it makes me insanely happy. And just bit overawed.

URL: http://www.raspberrypi.org/archives/5232