Software for digitizing 2d profile from photograph? Or alternatives?

[llltonic]

This is my first post here on Eng Tips. I've done a number of google searches as well as forum searches without finding what I'm looking for so hopefully someone here can help guide me in the right direction.

The problem:
I need to get a dimensionally accurate 2d profile of the edges of this wooden slab -

Currently my best idea to do so is to correct the photograph for lens distortion and perspective in photoshop and then scale the image to match measured dimensions. Then, I think I can place the file in illustrator and convert the outline to a path (though I haven't actually accomplished this yet). From illustrator it's easy to get to .dxf or another file that plays with my CAD software (NX7).

However, I'm highly uncertain that this method will give me an accurate final profile. A background grid with known dimensions would obviously help improve my confidence in lens and perspective corrections, but I still feel like there will be some distortion. Plus, it's not exactly quick and easy, and it would be nice to have a repeatable solution for future projects.

Is there a software solution or other system out there that might help me with this?

 

[llltonic]

I have now found a piece of software that seems to meet my requirements. It's designed for the marble/stone industry. However, at $10k per seat (and with detailed requirements for the photostation), it's not exactly in my price range:

http://www.slabsmith.com/home.php

Anyone know of a rougher or simpler package that's about 100x cheaper?

 

[GregLocock]

http://www.freedownload3.com/Design-and-Photo/Mathematical-Graphing/Dagra-Graph-Digitizer/32586.html

and similar products will trace a scanned curve and deliver coordinates.

I haven't used that program in particular.

It would be trivial to roll your own to analyse bmp files.

Cheers

Greg Locock


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[peter246]

i'm not familiar with PhotoShop's capabilities, but you might want to take a look at the free software "Hugin" for correcting the image.

 

[JohnRBaker]

There's software out there that will perform a Raster -> Vector conversion of images files such as JPEG or TIFF and then output it as a DXF file. The one product that comes to mind, and which I've played with a bit, is called 'Scan2CAD'. You can learn more about it at:

http://www.scan2cad.com/

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[KENAT]

I've had colleagues in tech pubs use Adobe Illustrator do similar but it was for simpler shapes/images.

Essentially taking a Tiff or similar of a logo and converting to dxf so I could use it in CAD.

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[llltonic]

Thanks for the tips. I ended up getting help from a photogrammetry expert:

http://aaslestad.com

He used a software package called Elcovision, I believe, and was able to produce a scale image freed from lens and perspective distortion.

I took that image into photoshop and used the available tools to isolate the slab as a selection. Then I placed that selection into illustrator and converted that into a vector outline. From there it's easy to export from illustrator as dxf and pull into any CAD software.

Here's the final result in #8 polished, laser cut stainless:

 

[peter246]

awesome! where's it being installed? thanks for following up!

 

[llltonic]

It's a coffee table for a client here in San Francisco.

Now that I've got the process nailed down though, I hope to make some more.

 

[mcgyvr]

Never tried it but this looks pretty darn neat.

http://labs.autodesk.com/utilities/photo_scene_editor/

 

[beej67]

Fascinating.

I would have laid a big piece of tracing paper over the wood, rubbed it with charcoal or graphite, and then run the thing through a full size scanner. Cost about ten bucks at FedEx Office.



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