Precious, Tiny and Shiny: Close-range Photogrammetry for Artists and Others

This presentation is part of an ongoing visual arts project that seeks to capture, re-examine and ultimately transform specific military and religious insignia, as part of an investigation into their interrelated iconogra- phies and histories. Close Range Photogrammetry is being used to provide 3D ‘scans’ and surface ‘textures’ of precious objects to very high resolution for use in a range of further processes; from animation to computer aided manufacture. The usual techniques of digital capture and processing tend to struggle with objects that are very small, monochromatic, reflective, or relatively lacking in features. The combination of highly reflective and textured materials, small scale, and detailed embroidery of these objects has required different approaches to achieving the accurate 3D models required. This demonstration will present the apparatus, methods and devices that have been developed to help solve these problems. Together they offer affordable, reliable, and scalable solutions to the traditional challenges of ‘3D scanning’ for particular types of objects, and robust methods applicable to a wide range of situations. They also help reduce the investment (of capital cost, time and labour) required to achieve accurate digital models with high resolution textures, opening up creative possibilities further down the virtual or material ‘pipeline’. Presentation of the Digital Capture project's close-range photogrammetry apparatus, devices and methodology at the international conference: 'Electronic Visualisation and the Arts', British Computer Society, London, July 2017.