Faro EXTERNAL CAM - First Impressions and Screenshots

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Justin Richards
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Faro EXTERNAL CAM - First Impressions and Screenshots

Post by Justin Richards »

Image
https://ibb.co/d5S5HZL

After spending the week with the new external camera attached to a Focus S350 I am impressed. Setup was easy, update firmware, change 2 camera settings (pick which cam to use in the settings and set it to take two photos) and quick calibrate scan, process it in SCENE 2021, and it's ready to go.

The Good:
-Fast color scans
-No noticeable difference in battery life
-Puts two easily accessible JPG photos in the FLS folder that can be edited and put back
-Allows for use of LED
-Will be a lot easier to clean up something accidently getting in the photo compared to the internal camera in a situation where not every scan is in color so every color scan is more vital the overall looks. (Like if you only run every 3rd scan in color and someone steps in front of the internal camera and you have to delete individual photos)
-Having to retake a scan is not as big a time waster as having to retake a internal color image

The Bad:
-I take a lot of scans and if you don't have anything nearby to hide behind or want to try to crawl under the tripod it can amount to a lot of walking between setups
-This one is kind of silly I know but I hate taking the access cover off in fear I'm going to misplace it.
-Another hex-key to mount the cam to the scanner adaptor
-With the camera mounted up above the scanner the perspective is going to be a little off when looking at quick view or individual scans as shown in the second picture of the white car.

I was able to fit 134 1/5 mostly 3x scans on a 32GB SD card. The PanoCam folder inside FLS is 107MB. If you plan on manually registering with spheres I would recommend processing in black in and while until you get it registered. I found it easier to register that way when I was doing some test scans at our office.

Image
https://ibb.co/s1KKfnS

Image
https://ibb.co/ckNcPW9

Image
https://ibb.co/xmVKHc7

Image
https://ibb.co/9t5bmVt

Image
https://ibb.co/2hJw23Y

Image
https://ibb.co/PG2YRpM

Image
https://ibb.co/THCpfkM

Both these pan photos are from the same scan
Image
https://ibb.co/8dYj3Tq
Image
https://ibb.co/9s1GxRW

I did this by myself all in color at 1/5 mostly 3x 160 scans in 2 days while moving 17 145mm spheres and 2 large spheres
Image
https://ibb.co/37L16Tr
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Re: Faro EXTERNAL CAM - First Impressions and Screenshots

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Re: Faro EXTERNAL CAM - First Impressions and Screenshots

Post by Leandre Robitaille »

How does the 2 or 4 picture setting work within scene? Are they combined into a single photo or are they 4 individual images?

Can you export the .fls and import them in recap and still see the 360 images within recap?

Also what about applying Li-HDR is this still possible or its only an internal camera feature?
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Re: Faro EXTERNAL CAM - First Impressions and Screenshots

Post by ProCro »

Also,

can you export panoramic images from 2 scans, one taken with external and other with internal camera (on very same postition of course)? I would love to se offset between them. I can do overlap in PS.

Thanks
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Re: Faro EXTERNAL CAM - First Impressions and Screenshots

Post by chirag_ARC »

Walking/running away from the scanner to hide from the colour capture seems a bit silly. Is there a way to take colour photos first on one side then on the other? Plenty of moments where I would prefer to be up next to the scanner rather than hide 70 metres away!
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Re: Faro EXTERNAL CAM - First Impressions and Screenshots

Post by Justin Richards »

Leandre Robitaille wrote: Fri Jul 02, 2021 9:03 pm How does the 2 or 4 picture setting work within scene? Are they combined into a single photo or are they 4 individual images?

Can you export the .fls and import them in recap and still see the 360 images within recap?

Also what about applying Li-HDR is this still possible or its only an internal camera feature?
Those are good questions, When you look at the individual scans on SCENE on the structure tree, it does not show photos at all so I'm not really sure how it treats them.

Later this week I will try to export something into recap and see what happens. I'm also interested to see what happens on Cintoo.

I didn't take any scans yet where HDR would have made a difference but I wouldn't see why it wouldn't work.



ProCro wrote: Sat Jul 03, 2021 7:52 am Also,

can you export panoramic images from 2 scans, one taken with external and other with internal camera (on very same postition of course)? I would love to se offset between them. I can do overlap in PS.

Thanks
I can't right now, we have one on order but that was just a loaner. I will when we get ours next week I believe.


chirag_ARC wrote: Sat Jul 03, 2021 12:24 pm Walking/running away from the scanner to hide from the colour capture seems a bit silly. Is there a way to take colour photos first on one side then on the other? Plenty of moments where I would prefer to be up next to the scanner rather than hide 70 metres away!
I wish there was. My boss said some people hide under the tripod but I already had the wind blow the tripod and scanner over this year ($8000+USD) so I'm not trying to be crawling up under the tripod anytime soon. It would be nice if it had a option for a half picture at a time, if nothing else it took some getting used to even when I had stuff to hide behind. What you might could do is not run all the scans in color if you are in a area that has nothing to hide behind. Either way, makes for some good exercise.
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Re: Faro EXTERNAL CAM - First Impressions and Screenshots

Post by geoscience »

Goodday
Thank you for sharing your thoughts. I would like to know if the onsite registration witht the external camera works properly? We found it very difficult due to the fact that the 1st scan will be registered properly unfortunately afterwards 2nd scan and 3rd scan are impossible. The latest scene version got stuck and we have to restart the programme. Thank you
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Re: Faro EXTERNAL CAM - First Impressions and Screenshots

Post by DavidL »

Justin Richards wrote: Tue Jul 06, 2021 8:14 pm
chirag_ARC wrote: Sat Jul 03, 2021 12:24 pm Walking/running away from the scanner to hide from the colour capture seems a bit silly. Is there a way to take colour photos first on one side then on the other? Plenty of moments where I would prefer to be up next to the scanner rather than hide 70 metres away!
I wish there was. My boss said some people hide under the tripod but I already had the wind blow the tripod and scanner over this year ($8000+USD) so I'm not trying to be crawling up under the tripod anytime soon. It would be nice if it had a option for a half picture at a time, if nothing else it took some getting used to even when I had stuff to hide behind. What you might could do is not run all the scans in color if you are in a area that has nothing to hide behind. Either way, makes for some good exercise.

This is quite a big problem for me scanning crime scenes, not sure it would even be feasible tbh. There definitely needs to be half then half solution.

I suppose if it takes 2 photos then you could remove yourself in photoshop, you'd just need to remember to shift your position between captures
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Re: Faro EXTERNAL CAM - First Impressions and Screenshots

Post by Justin Richards »

geoscience wrote: Thu Jul 08, 2021 11:36 am Goodday
Thank you for sharing your thoughts. I would like to know if the onsite registration witht the external camera works properly? We found it very difficult due to the fact that the 1st scan will be registered properly unfortunately afterwards 2nd scan and 3rd scan are impossible. The latest scene version got stuck and we have to restart the programme. Thank you
I hardly ever use onsite registration but the color shouldn't make a difference. If you are having issues between 1, 2, and 3 I would recommend checking your Onsite Registration settings on the scanner, making sure your scans are close enough, and to use targets in areas where other registration methods may not work well.
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Re: Faro EXTERNAL CAM - First Impressions and Screenshots

Post by Leandre Robitaille »

+1 for option to have it take pictures in steps. I would be ok with a 4 × 180° picture , 1 side,so you could run around the unit while it is taking pictures knowing what side is capturing.
Another solution would be to have it remove moving objects threw missmatch overlaps. So all you would need to do is not be at the same place in 2 or 4 pictures. That would be hard to implement tough.
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