“Karmaveer Bhaurao Patil, born in Kumbhoj, Kolhapur on September 1887, was a social activist and an educator in Maharastra, India. A strong advocate of mass education, he founded the Rayat Education society. Bhuarao played an important role in educating backward castes and low-income people by coming the philosophy earn and learn.”
(Source: Wikipedia)
Summary:
To create a highly detailed 3D model of the bronze monument of venerable social activist and educator, Karmaveer Bhau Rao Patil, for 3D Printing.
The Goal:
To use a handheld 3D scanner to digitally capture the entire monument and ultimately create a viewable/printable 3D model.
Tools Used:
Einscan Pro+, EXScan Pro Software, Geomagic Design-X.
Previously we have done 3D Scanning for large-sized sculptures. But this sculpture is specifically difficult to scan due to its presence on a 15-feet tall acropodium, outdoor environment, reflective and shining bronze surface and large data collection. We can say that Einscan pro+ has done a good job in scanning the artwork on the fly or in hard environmental conditions. This article talks about the challenges our scanning team have faced in 3D scanning the statue and how we overcome those challenges with our experience and strategy.
Challenges Faced to 3D Scan the Statue:
- 9 feet-tall Monument, mounted on an approx. 15 feet-tall acropodium.
- Monument is present in an Open Environment exposed to Cloudy Weather
- The full Reflective and a Shining Bronze Surface of the monument.
- Large Size of the monument takes huge data for processing.
Challenge one: 9 feet-tall Monument, mounted on an approx. 15 feet-tall acropodium.
The height of the statue and its presence on an acropodium made it difficult for scanning with Einscan pro+. Also, the location of the statue on a hilly area was unfavourable to use staircases or a crane for scanning. With that large size monument, the only prop we needed was a scaffold to access the monument from all sides, and the Institute Management provided us with one. The scaffold is built around the monument in almost 9 hours, to facilitate the scanning of all the sides. Most of the time we worked with a laptop and the Einscan pro+ plugged into a power source.
“An on-demand scaffold is built by the institute management, in order to access all the sides of the monument for scanning”
Challenge Two: Monument present in an Open Environment exposed to Cloudy Weather.
The ever-changing climate conditions made it difficult to calibrate and scan with Einscan Pro+ in broad daylight. The brightness, contrast, and intensity of light exposure are not the same in the time of calibration and during scanning, making it difficult for the scanner to identify and capture the point cloud data after reflection. So, our solution was to scan the monument at night time. During night time same light exposure is maintained all the time from calibration to till the completion of scanning.
The picture depicts the statue of the legend, Karmaveer Bhaurao Patil. Located at “Samadhi parisar, Satara”. The 9 feet-tall statue is seen mounted on an approx 1-feet-tall acropodium, in an open environment and also on a hilly area.
Challenge Three: The full Reflective and a Shining Bronze surface of the monument.
It is difficult for Einscan pro+ to capture reflective and shining surfaces. Generally, the white light rays emitted from the Einscan pro+ will be captured back by the two camera sensors after reflection, in a point cloud format. But, due to the highly reflective and shining surface, the light rays will be over reflected and makes it difficult for the camera sensors to capture the point cloud data. One could obviously say that using a dulling spray will counter the reflective and shining surface. But, dulling sprays are often known for permanent attachment or colour lost. As the monument is only one of a kind and also located in a sacred place, we are not allowed to risk using a dulling spray. So, we used the same strategy as before, which is scanning at night time. With our sound experience in 3D scanning, we could say that there is very less shining and reflection during dark night time.
“Scanning with Einscan Pro+ on shining surface (without using dulling spray) and in a broad day light is difficult to capture the scan data.”
Challenge Four: Large Size of the monument takes huge data for Processing.
Because the surface area of the Karmaveer monument was quite large. We developed our own 3D Scanning strategy for the project. We had divided our work into 3 areas (3 Scan projects). One is the Bust, the second area is the front surface and the third area is the Back surface. Scanning took 1 day and post-processing another 4 days because of the huge amount of data, 16 GB. We have edited the individual mesh data and aligned the three areas using Geo-magic Design X software and made some refinements in a 3d modeling software.
Ready to print 3D Model
We have just shown you an incredible, watertight, ready-to-print 3D model of a bronze monument to Karmaveer Bhaurao Patil, which we scanned using Einscan Pro+ and EXScan Pro Software. The task was commissioned by the “ Yashavantrao Chavan Institute of Science, Satara”, with a view to preserving the monument’s 3D copy for posterity and preparing a 3D Printed-mementos to present in the 100th anniversary celebrations of Rayat Shikshan Sansthan.
The Institute Management is really happy with the result, especially because they can now manipulate the 3D model virtually and see the monument from any angle with a click of a mouse.
– Case Study by J.G.S.Prasanth