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+Date: Sat, 6 Apr 2013 14:09:05 +0100
+From: Martin Ling <martin@earth.li>
+Reply-To: discuss@edinburghhacklab.com
+To: "discuss@edinburghhacklab.com" <discuss@edinburghhacklab.com>
+Subject: [hacklab-discuss] Notes on the state of 3D scanning with a Kinect
+Hi all,
+Wren & I have just spent a while trying to scan ourselves with the lab's
+Kinect, with the aim of getting models that would be useful for sizing &
+designing clothes. For the benefit of anyone else trying to do something
+similar, here are some notes on how it works and what the state of
+available software is.
+Hardware:
+- The lab's Kinect is the version designed for the Xbox 360, and came
+  with a weird Xbox-specific connector that carries 12V + USB. I have
+  now modded this to have a standard USB connector and a 12V mains
+  supply, so you can plug it into a PC. You can still use it with an
+  Xbox 360 if you want to.
+- The Kinect lives in the lab store room.
+Drivers / SDK:
+- The official software is Microsoft's Kinect for Windows SDK, which you
+  can get from:
+  http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/kinectforwindows/develop/developer-downloads.aspx
+  Note that although this SDK is marketed as being for the "Kinect for
+  Windows" hardware, it works fine with the Xbox Kinects. The only
+  apparent difference in the more expensive "Kinect for Windows" model
+  is a firmware that enables "near mode" operation down to ~40cm, rather
+  than the ~80cm limit of the original models.
+  As of version 1.7 released two weeks ago, the SDK includes the Kinect
+  Fusion code which was developed at Microsoft Research. This can build
+D models on the fly from the Kinect data stream, but you need a high
+  spec GPU to do the processing. Unsurprisingly I couldn't run this on
+  my laptop. Perhaps a GPU with this sort of capability would be a good
+  addition to a lab workstation.
+- The open source alternative stack is OpenNI: http://www.openni.org/
+  This is a framework for working with all sorts of Kinect-like devices.
+  There is a Kinect driver for it that works with Windows, Mac and Linux:
+  https://github.com/avin2/SensorKinect
+- You can have both drivers installed at the same time on Windows, but
+  you need to select which is used for the Kinect through Device Manager
+  before starting software that depends on one driver or the other.
+Scanning Software:
+- The best thing seems to be ReconstructMe: http://reconstructme.net/
+  This runs on Windows and works with both OpenNI and the Kinect for
+  Windows drivers.
+  The GUI version for this is very simple - one button to record and
+  reconstruct a mesh on the fly - but I you'd need a fast GPU for this
+  to work. Also they charge for a non-crippled version.
+  The console version (not crippled, but for non-commercial use only)
+  allows recording and offline processing. It also has a stitcher that
+  will join up multiple scans, although this doesn't do fusion between
+  them, just simple stitching.
+  There are essentially no options or manual adjustments in this
+  software - it's just data in, model out.
+  Without a GPU the processing is very, very slow, but it works well.
+  You have to make sure to move the sensor very slowly.
+  It doesn't output coloured models, but it does go all the way to a
+  mesh, rather than just a point cloud. It outputs .obj files. If you
+  need to post-process or convert these to something else, I recommend
+  MeshLab: http://meshlab.sourceforge.net/
+- The other software we tried was SCENECT:
+  http://3d-app-center.faro.com/index.php/stand-alone-apps-faro-scenect
+  It runs on Windows and uses OpenNI and the driver from the link above,
+  which it installs for you.
+  This is a modified version of the SCENE LT laser scanning software
+  which uses the Kinect as a data source instead of a laser scanner.
+  So it already has lots of features for visualіsing, processing and
+  exporting the data.
+  It does on-the-fly point cloud reconstruction, although we found it
+  easier to just record the data stream and process it offline.
+  This almost worked for us. The problem is that the tracking between
+  frames often jumps, leaving mismatches in the data. To try and
+  get round this we ran multiple shorter, slow-moving scans from
+  different angles, and tried to match them up afterwards. The software
+  has an automatic matching feature for this, but it didn't like our data.
+  It's possible that with more effort we could get this to work. It
+  runs faster and offers a lot more control than ReconstructMe, and also
+  outputs colour data.
+Hope this is useful to someone!
+Martin
+</code>