In order to digitise the actors, I had two major options: photogrammetry and 3d laser scanning. Photogrammetry is a tedious process of taking multiple photos from the subject from all directions in a very flat lighting condition. The most important element of human characterisation is face so both of our photogrammetry and 3d laser scanning activities were focused on scanning the head. At the time of production phase, we didn’t have a photogrammetry setup at AUT so with the help of Ali Taheri, another PhD student, two of my students, I made a custom-build 3 camera photogrammetry setup. Below you can have a glimpse at how this system working.
Fortunately, AUT has a 12 camera photogrammetry setup. We examined photogrammetry session with two major setups:
- Static camera setup, rotating subject
- Static subject, rotating camera setup
Our experiments showed that static subject with a background that has a bit of variety would result in better parallax and generates more accurate mesh. To achieve this, we should have moved our camera setup while now that we have more cameras, they populate all the space around the subject head and there will be no need to have moving parts.
