3d laser scanning

So, have you ever looked at a trinket on your desk and said, "hey, that would be cool to have in Second Life?"

Well, with a little persistence, you can pretty much do it for free.  Assuming you already have a decent webcam, a laser pointer, and a wine glass, you're ready to roll.  The rest of this post is extremely unorganized, and I have no pictures to share (yet).

First, snatch the software.  You'll need Blender and DAVID-Laserscanner 3, both of which are free downloads.  DAVID will operate just fine in free mode in a resolution that is far superior to anything you'll be able to put into a sculptie.  Read the DAVID instructions carefully, but, truthfully, it's not hard at all.

I'm just getting past the proof-of-concept phase, so not much to report.  My first scans were with the guts of an old Black & Decker Bullseye, but I've graduated to this 532nm green laser I picked up off Amazon for about $8.  The wine stem method works great - just shine the pointer through a clean, thin glass or crystal wine stem to get a nice, thin lased line.

Depending on my success, I'm going to upgrade to a dedicated laser line generator, which I'll probably be grabbing from Aixiz.  If you're curious how lasers compare to each other, I found a neat tool here.

Blender procedural texturing (texture nodes) - Stained Glass

OK, I'm jumping back into Blender after an extended hiatus.  First steps, play with new stuff.

This morning, I decided to try and create a stained glass texture.

Here's the node setup:

 As you can see, the color output is mapped to color and specularity; the bump output is mapped to inverse normals.

Here's the test render:

I know it needs some work, but this could be a really nice effect.