Hello everyone,

one week after the launch of ReconstructMe 2.0, we are happy to announce that we’ve just made ReconstructMe SDK 2.0 publicly available. ReconstructMe SDK is the reconstruction engine used by ReconstructMe to perform 3D scanning in real-time.

The SDK update brings tons of new features and many new examples. Make sure you don’t miss the following sections!

3D Color Capture

The new ReconstructMe SDK enables you capture geometric and color information in real-time. The colorize example shows how you can capture a colorized 3D model with just a few lines of code. A resampling algorithm automatically optimizes the surface while maintaining its appearance as the following video shows

Multiple sensor handling

With our latest release we made using multiple sensors as easy as never before. Have a look at our body-scanning example that uses 2 sensors that work together and is written in less than 100 lines of code including calibration. Here’s a sneak peak at the result

Point and Shoot

Using ReconstructMe’s ability to perform global alignment, its easy to write an application that uses only key-frames for reconstruction. This is especially interesting for lower-powered devices such as note-books and tablets where real-time scanning is computationally too expensive. Our point and shoot example shows how trivial it is to implement

More Features and Bug-Fixes

Besides the features mentioned above here’s a short list on new things you’ll find in ReconstructMe SDK 2.0

• Sensor Positioning We’ve added some intelligent sensor positioning techniques which can automatically detect the floor and construct an aligned volume around it. This technique was also for the experimental hidden feature in ReconstructMe 2.0
• Setup Tuner The setup tuner will automatically adjust reconstruction parameters to the chosen volume size.
• Performance Improvements The performance of alignment routines greatly improved by a module that allows a position forecast based on the tracked camera path.
• Alignment Stability We’ve added an option to allow tracking even if the sensor is not looking at the volume at all. This feature is best used for static scenes.
• Bugfixes We’ve fixed many sensor related issues. Intel HD series and AMD 79xx series are now supported.

The ReconstructMe SDK can be downloaded from our developer page.

Hello everyone,

the waiting is over. We have now officially released ReconstructMe 2.0 for Windows. ReconstructMe now features a brand new slick UI design and brings support for colorizing your scans. The new UI allows you to create your setup more easily. Background helpers automatically choose the best settings for your scanning task. A simplification module optimizes your surface for less memory consumption while maintaining its appearance.

From our dear beta users we know that ReconstructMe 2.0 offers better performance, works across a wide range of GPUs/CPUs and generates higher quality scans.

This is only the beginning of a huge adventure for all of us. Many features are about to come to ReconstructMe 2.0 such as texturing from photos, cleaning and completing meshes as well as mobile support. One experimental feature is already included in the current release, albeit a bit hidden, and waits for you to discover it. We are giving away one free PRO license for the first explorer who unveils it. Hint: we are using the feature in our demo video below.

The following video quickly introduces ReconstructMe 2.0 and shows how easy it is to generate colorized 3d scans.

You can download ReconstructMe 2.0 from our Get Started Now! page.
Capture your moment in 3D with ReconstructMe.

Best regards,
The ReconstructMe Team

Hello everyone,

we just wanted to let you know that the public release of ReconstructMe 2.0 is nearing completion. ReconstructMe 2.0 will be available for public release on

Tuesday, 24th of September 2013

We’d like to thank all of our beta users for providing invaluable feedback. The winners of the PRO licenses for most innovative feature requests will announced next. We wish everyone a nice weekend and conclude with a nice scan from Mark Schafer of a toy-pig.

While everyone is waiting for the official release of ReconstructMe 2.0 we thought it might be a good idea to give people all around the world a chance to write about their personal ReconstructMe project. Today we start this series with an article written Corey Kinard, who is currently beta testing ReconstructMe 2.0.

In case you’d like to see your project listed here, send us a short write-up and we reward every published project with a free PRO license.

DIY Handheld Kinect Scanner

By Corey Kinard

A few months back I was doing some research with using the Kinect as an inexpensive handheld scanning solution utilizing the wonderful ReconstructMe software. While I was blown away with what an off-the-shelf entertainment accessory could accomplish, I was a little disappointed with the ease of use and accuracy when scanning. The issue is you are tethered to your computer by the Kinect and you are constantly keeping an eye on your monitor which is 8 to 10 feet away. I found that it was hard to know if I’d fully covered an area. I’ve seen where people lug around a laptop while scanning, and while that works, you’d get fatigued quickly. There had to be a better way. There was.

I remembered that I had a little USB monitor laying around that I used to use as a secondary video editing preview screen on my laptop. Now I just needed a way to attach and comfortably hold the contraption. I started looking around on Amazon for solutions and came across a camera pistol grip and a wall mounted Kinect stand that featured a camera mount screw in its base. We were in business! With a little modification to the base (the camera mount hole wasn’t the industry standard) I was able to mount the Kinect to the base and the base to the pistol grip. I then attached the the USB monitor to the back of the Kinect with some strong velcro, I wanted to be able to remove the screen and hold it in one hand if I needed to get the Kinect higher/lower and I still wanted visual feedback.

I also wanted to address a few additional issues I had with Kinect scanning-cable length, cable management, remote triggering and the number of USB ports needed. I purchased a few USB extension cables as well as a 4-port USB hub for the Kinect and USB monitor to attach to. With this I was able to have approximately 12 feet of cable and all of the devices used a single USB port. As for remote triggering I thought it would be nice to have a small keyboard/mouse that I could control the captures with. Once everything was attached and tested I then used a bunch of zip ties to hold all of the cables and extensions in place.

If you are serious about Kinect handheld scanning I highly recommend creating a rig similar to this, it doesn’t cost a lot and increases your scanning productivity. If you are interested in building one for yourself, here’s my breakdown to help you get started:

• Lilliput 7” USB Monitor
• Camera Pistol Grip
• Monoprice Xbox 360 Kinect Wall Mount
• Mini Wireless Keyboard
• USB Hub
• 6’ USB Extension (x4)

Hello everyone,

we are overwhelmed by the number of Beta registrations received so far. We have already reached more registrations than we can handle and therefore we need to close registration for Beta.

Thank you,
The ReconstructMe – Team

Hello everyone,

today I have the pleasure to announce that we are about the release our new graphical user interface along with a set of new features that matured in the last couple of months. The following images give a quick impression of the new look and feel of ReconstructMe 2.0

Calling for beta users
We’ve essentially entered feature freeze state for the next release and concentrate on fixing the latest glitches that we observe in our test environment. Since we cannot test every single graphics card and setup, we’d like to call for beta testers for our next release. In case you are interested in joining the beta, please write to info@reconstructme.net and shortly tell us why you’d love to test the new ReconstructMe.

Schedule
Our schedule foresees that we send out ReconstructMe 2.0 to our beta testers Tuesday (2013/09/10) next week and gather feedback until the end of next week. In case no serious issues pop up, we will be releasing on Monday the 16th of September to the public!

Rest assured, we will be continuing to blog about new features in the coming weeks. We wish everyone a happy reconstruction!

Wired.co.uk runs a short how-to article on making a handheld 3D scanner. It’s released a little bit too early as we are preparing a release for end of August with a couple of new features and improvements.

We will keep you posted!

Recently idea_beans shared a Thing to print a professional Kinect XBox lense holder. This thingy can be used to increase the resolution of a Kinect/PrimeSense sensor by sticking common 2.5+ reading glass lenses to it.

Unfortunately, the Kinect does not have an auto-calibration feature which means that you won’t be able to scan 360° with this upgrade. However, the PrimseSense Carmine 1.09 is reported (and [un]officially confirmed) to auto-compensate for the lense distortion.

Our ReconstructMe 1.2 using Carmine 1.09 High Detail post has more on that story.

As you might know, Fredini’s Coney Island Scan-A-Rama kickstarter project is a success. With 188+ backers the project raised more than 15.000 USD. Now Fred Kahl has released initial hardware designs for the Scan-O-Tron 3000. Below is a video showing the Scan-O-Tron and ReconstructMe in action.

Fred Kahl, aka Fredini, launched a Kickstarter campaign to fund his new project called the Coney Island Scana-a-Rama. From the project description:

Coney Island Scan-A-Rama is an art project to scan and produce 3D printed portraits of the masses of people who visit America’s playground: Coney Island. Visitors to the portrait studio will come in to get a 3D portrait taken and then a full body 3D figurine of them will be included in a 2014 installation recreating a fully populated model of Coney Island, New York’s Luna Park as it stood 100 years ago!

Fred is using ReconstructMe technology for capturing 3D models of visitors and is probably one of the most experienced users out there. At the time of writing the project still needs some funding, so please back the project if you can.

We’ve started our midsummer deal and you can order a PRO version of ReconstructMe only at Euro 135 (limited time offer, including taxes). The full PRO removes all limitations of the LITE version and includes updates for one year. Click the image below to shop.