When we were looking for a scanner, we were very interested in the NRC of Canada's scanning technology. It is marketed through a company called Arius3D (www.arius3d.com). If you look at their web page, you can see that they get some spectacular results. One of their scanners was recently applied in a Palaeontologica Electronica article by Lyons et al. (http://palaeo-electronica.org/2000_2/mosasaur/issue2_00.htm ). However, when I talked to Arius3D, I found that (as of about a year-and-a-half ago) a portable system wasn't commercially available yet. I also got some very preliminary guesses at the costs that were well beyond the resources of most people: $300K to over $1 million. However, I think some of these scanners are available for hire, if you have only a small number of specimens that you can take to the scanner.
As an alternative, we've bought a Breuckmann system (www.breuckmann.com), which is portable, is claimed to be very accurate (to within microns), and which has a very fast acquisition time (about a second). It's not a laser system, but uses moire fringes and white light. It is also available with a color camera. It is still pretty expensive (around $125K), but nothing like a color laser scanner. Don't ask me what it's like to use - our's is still in the crate, and we won't be trained to use it for a while yet. In the mean time, there is a very nice web page for a group that is applying a Breuckmann system to imaging hominid fossils (www.hotpad.org). I haven't talked to them about their experiences with the system, yet - that's still far down on my to-do list. Tim Cole At 05:59 PM 3/21/2003 -0500, you wrote: >When I am looking for scanners I contact my colleaque Marc Rioux at the >National Research Council of Canada's Institute for Information >Technology (http://iit-iti.nrc-cnrc.gc.ca/). They do amazing 3-D >scanning research there and have even developed a scanner that collects >both 3-D geometry and calibrated color (the only one in existence to >date). They do collaborative research with many institutions and >universities as well. Marc will know what is going on in the 3-D >scanning arena and should be able to point you in the right direction. > >Kath > >Kathleen Robinette >Air Force Research Laboratory >[EMAIL PROTECTED] > > >-----Original Message----- >From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] >Sent: Friday, March 21, 2003 8:19 AM >To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] >Subject: laser scanners > > >Dear Colleague, >I have been looking for a laser scanner to work with 3-d objects of >0.5-3.0 cm in size (mainly skulls of small mammals). Minolta produces >something appriopriate but very expensive. I would greatly appreciate >any suggestions. >Best wishes, Wieslaw > >******************************************** >Wieslaw Bogdanowicz >Professor and head >Museum and Institute of Zoology >Polish Academy of Sciences >Wilcza 64 >00-679 Warszawa >Poland > >[EMAIL PROTECTED] >== >Replies will be sent to list. >For more information see http://life.bio.sunysb.edu/morph/morphmet.html. >== >Replies will be sent to list. >For more information see http://life.bio.sunysb.edu/morph/morphmet.html. Theodore M. Cole III, Ph.D. Department of Basic Medical Science School of Medicine University of Missouri - Kansas City 2411 Holmes St. Kansas City, MO 64108 USA Phone: (816) 235 -1829 FAX: (816) 235 - 6517 e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] www: http://c.faculty.umkc.edu/colet == Replies will be sent to list. For more information see http://life.bio.sunysb.edu/morph/morphmet.html.
