Fact Sheet 1

Human head scanning is one of the oldest applications for 3D scanning in the entertainment industry, having been perhaps first utilised in Star Trek IV: The Wrath of Khan back in 1982. From the T1000 in Terminator 2 and the 'water-faces' in The Abyss, right up to the 'poly-juice' transformations in 'Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets', head scanning has played a pivotal role in visual effects for some twenty years.

Whether a CG head or full body is required for replacement of stunt doubles or for an entirely CG element, The quickest method for capturing the geometry of a performer is with a Cyber scan. Fast and cost affective it gives you a head start to your modelling. Some of our systems even capture textures with each scan taking as little as 2 seconds, rapid, multiple takes are possible allowing capture of a variety of expressions without the discomfort that traditional body casting would cause to a subject.

We use a variety of systems, some that can fit in a suitcase and some larger but more accurate systems.

Notes:
Laser based systems - by shining a laser stripe onto a subject seated on a platform this laser is eye safe as a class 2 laser.

The operator can instantly view on a workstation for assessment of your scans.
 

So...

Q: How is this done?
A: Well we take a human subject and prep them for scanning, we ask them to stand or sit so we can scan them.

Q: What do you need to scan?
A: A human subject or costume that can fit inside the rotation of the scanning system. For a whole body scan we will take hand and feet casts so that we have high definition models to add to the body. A lot of body scanners lose data on hands and feet.

Q: Who long dos it take?
A: Scanning can take 1 to 4 hours depending on your needs - head only, half body or full body.

Q: What do we get?
A: You get a model of the human subject or cotume in GC format. Say Obj DXF Hrc and so on. This will be at multiple levels of detail for your CGI team . We give data in most 3d formats and with reference images. Alas we do not attach images to the models.

More of our work...