Material scanning service

[vlado]

This has been in the works for a few years, but finally we are ready to go public:

http://vrscans.com/

Best regards,
Vlado

[WilleViz]

This is extremely interesting! What is your plan for a library of VRscans materials? Will some be free, others pay as you go?

I gotta say, with the release of VRay 3.3 you guys are really rocking!

[glorybound]

Awesome and a very pretty site.

[DJH]

What kind of cost are we looking at to scan a material? For example - a damascus silk fabric?

[cheerioboy]

This has been in the works for a few years, but finally we are ready to go public:

http://vrscans.com/

Best regards,
Vlado

Ready to go public? It seems to still be missing a lot of information about how this works. The idea of being able the purchase the gear ourselves isn't happening? The shader balls with the fabric winkle and stitch - I'm guessing that's not part of what you'd expect, and more an elegant model mocked up to display the materials scanned.

How much will this cost? What type of materials can be scanned? Glass, Metal, Fabric? What size materials will you accept? Shape of material sample? I've been excited about this, but I had really hoped this would be something I could setup myself at the office. We have thousands of material samples that I'd promptly start digitizing and cataloging.

[^Lele^]

Ready to go public? It seems to still be missing a lot of information about how this works. The idea of being able the purchase the gear ourselves isn't happening? The shader balls with the fabric winkle and stitch - I'm guessing that's not part of what you'd expect, and more an elegant model mocked up to display the materials scanned.

How much will this cost? What type of materials can be scanned? Glass, Metal, Fabric? What size materials will you accept? Shape of material sample? I've been excited about this, but I had really hoped this would be something I could setup myself at the office. We have thousands of material samples that I'd promptly start digitizing and cataloging.

Something must have slipped on publishing, we're working on rectifying that.

Little snippet from the faqs soon to be published:

- Good materials – fabrics, leather, plastics, metal, wood, stone;
- Bad materials – glass, skin;
- We can only scan opaque materials;
- We can only scan flat materials;
- We can scan materials with texture depth not more than 1 mm;
- Effective scanning area - Maximum material size is 200x200 mm and min material size is 20x20 mm;
- Resolution limitation of 1px=6/100 mm;
It takes around a couple of hours to scan a sample, which can be gotten back to the user digitally or through physical dispatch.
I suppose as far as "mass producing" the scanner to be sent around, it'll depend on the interest... ^^

[cheerioboy]

Thanks for all that info Lele, super helpful.

Interest on mass producing the scanner is probably largely dependant on the cost. Is there a rough cost that could be shared? To feel out if enough people would be willing to commit. I'm guessing it's quite pricey otherwise it probably would have been offered up from the beginning.

Seems like shipping materials to be scanned could be costly and a hassle, on top of the processing fees if it's taking several hours per material. Then again, depends how important it is to have accurate materials.

Oh another question. With the scanned material loaded into vray is there any ability to tweak on top for artistic purposes? Or maybe a way to bake down the vray scan into a vray material?

Thanks

[super gnu]

presumably with a maximum scan size of 200x200, youre not going to be able to use these materials on large architectural surfaces? the tiling would be awful. on that subject, are they set up to tile without seams?

[^Lele^]

The help file ought to be fairly current.
Tiling does magic with these materials, some early users were quite surprised at the results, and not in a bad way either.

http://docs.chaosgroup.com/display/V...VRayScannedMtl

[super gnu]

id like to see what it could do with a tray of sand. ive got a desert to texture.

im currently fannying round with scattered particles exported as alembics, but ill probably just go back to old fashioned bitmaps.



that would be a good tiling test

having said that im not sure you guys would want to get a tray of sand anywhere near your machine :P

[jacksc02]

Looks great!
I would purchase the leathers on the site if they were for sale.

[möbius]

On the site it says somthing about a library of scanned materials. Any information on that?

[vlado]

having said that im not sure you guys would want to get a tray of sand anywhere near your machine :P

Well, a layer of sand can always be glued to a piece of cardboard or something...

Best regards,
Vlado

[vlado]

On the site it says somthing about a library of scanned materials. Any information on that?

There is a library of about 56 materials (different types of cloth, leather, some metals). You can probably evaluate them if you are interested.

Best regrds,
Vlado

[super gnu]

Well, a layer of sand can always be glued to a piece of cardboard or something...

Best regards,
Vlado

yes! might have other uses too.. we could call it..... hmm.. sand-card? not very catchy..