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Scene scanner
Scene scanner is a fast, hand-held 3D scanner. To use it, you walk around, sweeping the scanner head as if spray-painting the scene, which can be several tens of metres in size.
A scan of an oak barrel, which required 6 sweeps, took about a minute, and was texture mapped by selecting the image most parallel to the each facet. It is part of a project to rapidly create assets for computer games.
The only preparation is to scatter a few targets non-invasively around the scene or object; no markers need to be stuck on the surfaces to be scanned.
The experience of such free-form scanning is a highly interactive one: the operator controls what is captured and how. Even very awkward shapes can be tackled. Any unwanted data can be immediately removed. You can scan interesting bits in greater detail and gloss over less important areas.
Disconnected objects can be scanned separately while their exact relative spacial relationship is maintained. It is easy to exclude regions from the scan by defining volumes of interest outside of which no data is gathered. This can be done interactively using the scanner head.
The resultant computer file is processed for photorealistic fly-throughs, scene re-examinations, measurement, digital manipulation and so on.