Procedure

The scanner gathers data by emitting a laser which rotates from right to left over the surface of the object and collects data representing points on the object which will eventually become the surface of the object in digital form. At the end of each scan (in my case 1/10 of a full rotation of the object) the laser scanner pieces each scan together to eventually create a 3D image. By scanning the object from multiple orientations, the final scan will be complete from every angle, minus minute holes in the texture which in most cases are unavoidable. The laser scans the part of the object that is directly facing the scanner; areas that are visible to the laser scanner and have normals that face where the laser scanner is transmitting will give the best results for each scan. I chose to use 1/10 of a rotation which translates to 36 degrees because it uses a small amount of time given the quality of data that I would like to collect. If I chose to use 1/20 of a rotation per collection of scans, I would get quite a bit more data but the overall look of the object would only be slightly different. The diminishing returns of adding more scans are not necessary in this application but the option of adding higher resolution to my set of scans is appreciated when using more complex geometry such as a miniature model of a house or a more organic or detailed figure such as a tree where it would be important to capture the details of each leaf to retain realism.

To remove the noise and unwanted data, I used a trim function and clicked on the parts of the images that I did not want to be in the final geometric representation. The algorithm removes the data from each of the individual scans as opposed to me manually going through each individual scan within a set (10 per 360 rotation). The program creates a 3D representation in point cloud, triangle, and iso-surface form. These three visualization techniques allow me to see the noise on small and large scale applications to correct the final representation of the scans.