On a blustery Wednesday here in London, Charlie and Tom venture out to try out an idea – to make a 3d scan of a frieze on the old Saville Theatre on Shaftsbury Avenue. Only one problem stood in our way – it’s 20 feet (6 metres) in the air:
We’ve been 3D scanning for a while over here – and teaching other people the not-so-dark art too – and one obstacle that we’ve come across again and again is that we’re just. not. that. tall.
This is normally not a problem in day to day life, but when you’re trying to 3D scan the top of an ancient egyptian sculpture that’s 10ft in the air or indeed a complete a totem pole – being taller than a regular human would be an advantage.
Our solution? A Big Stick.
Among my various work I (Tom) have done a fair amount of sound recording on short films and documentaries and one of my trusty bits of portable recording gear is a boom pole. While normally the thread attachments only fit 3/8 inch microphone grips, by purchasing a thread adaptor and a ball head mount we made ourselves a pretty serviceable camera pole!
We can control the camera (a Canon G7x) with an app on our phones that displays a mirrored viewport of what the camera can see via WiFi. A tap on our handset triggers the shutter on the camera, complete with a handy cartoon “ker-chik” sound from it’s speaker.
Never one’s to miss an opportunity, our first outing with this set up was to make a scan on the side of a building on a busy road in central London.
