For this aspect of our collaborative campus history project, you need to create a 3D scan of something on campus. It’s a way of documenting the campus outside of the traditional photo or video.
Yes, the assignment is a bit contrived, but also gives you a sense of what scanning, albeit with limitations that come with free tools, is actually like outside of us reading about it. Plus, it’s a way to experience contributing to a new kind of digital archive of UNM. Future students will love looking at your objects! Wouldn’t it be cool if you could see campus objects from 50 years ago? (just smile and nod even if you don’t think so.)
There can be plenty of imperfections in your digital model. Spending more time trying to make it hyper realistic does not really help you learn any more than a relatively quick scan, provided that your 3D model is recognizable.
Before you scan, make sure you’ve created your SketchFab account, since that’s where we need to upload our scans. There’s a Sign up link in the upper right corner.
There are two main ways of scanning an object.
If you have a smallish item, you can use a little turn table to make scanning easier, since you don’t need to move yourself or the scanner around the object.
Warning: The scanner can’t really scan black, shiny, or transparent things. We have a spray that you can use if there is a little shine or some black, but don’t bring something super shiny or mostly black.
Follow the studio scanning guide, and you’ll have your scan in SketchFab in no time!
Download a free scanning app called RealityScan . It’s intuitive to use, so just playing around for a few minutes will tell you all you need to know.
You’ll be most efficient and get better scans right away if you watch this 4-minute tutorial. The inteface is a bit different now, but still works basically the same. It now has an auto capture mode that will take pictures for you as you move your phone around the object, and the cropping happens after it’s done processing images, not as shown in the video. But you’ll see it’s quite straightforward. Scanning in general takes a little playing around to get the hang of it. Start with a very small item to see how things work.
After your scan has processed, you can send your model to SketchFab through the RealityScan.
Don’t forget to get the embed code for your model and put it on your campus history page.