Hi,
I´m a Swedish artist and I have a problem that someone here maybe could help me to solve. I´m doing a project where I need to photograph a vertical area that is about 1 meter wide and 2 meters high piece by piece. So, I want the camera to take a picture, move 2 cm, take another picture, move again and do that 50 times in the x-direction and then move 1,5 cm in the y-direction and then take another pictures in the x-direction. I want it to keep doing that until the whole area is covered as fast as possible. I´ve been looking at motorized sliders and cranes but I can´t see a good solution at the moment. I would be really grateful if someone could give me some input.

Best
Ulf

http://www.ulflundin.nu

Quick math, that over 6600 pictures - if it took 1 second to move a shoot that would take 1 hour 51 minutes for one past (you are thinking one pass aren't you?) the resulting image would be on of the largest gigapixel photographs ever taken. I would search gigapixel photographs and see if any one has done such a photo before. Because the data alone is going to be massive.

Can you turn the picture on its side, move the camera on track for the x-axis and use a "peg board" arrangement to raise the photograph in the y-axis. Food for thought.
On its side you only have 1metre in the vertical plane to worry about.

just move the object over a grid to keep track..

Thanks for your input.
Yes, I know there´s a lot of pictures and that it will be a huge file. That is partly the purpose. The time is a bigger problem. 2 hours is too long. I don´t even know if time lapse equipment is the right area to look.

Unfortunately I can´t turn the object on its side. Is has to be standing and it can´t be moved.

Ulf

Not in your price range I assume but some alternative methods for "wall" scanning.

http://www.crusescanner.com/

Thanks, Mike. I don´t know what the cost is for this and I´m not sure if I want to. It looks very expensive. And I want to use my regular camera. I don´t want a scan.

Sounds like what you want is a type of gantry rig or XY table on its side. You should look at the stuff they use for factory equipment. There are many systems that use aluminium extrusions that bolt together and sliders that attach to these. Simplest arrangement would be two synchronised horizontal sliders with a single vertical slider between them. You could also use a simple tower system on rails, but it may not be as stable for making fast moves.

I think you might be right. That can be the direction to go. That´s a world that is unknown to me. I have to look into it to find out where to turn. A least I know the the words in english.

Thanks/Ulf

Following on from Gerald's post, this may give you some additional ideas as to how to proceed / adapt to your requirements. Stepper motors could be used in place of servo motors to drive a 1 x 2 metre construct. Google X Y plotters for more ideas / images.
http://www.instructables.com/id/Low-Cost-Hobby-Servo-XY-Table/

are you trying to make one big picture out of the shots?
or???

Thanks, that looks interesting. I´ll look it up.

Hello,

I founded a company that developed a gigapixal video camera system for aerial imagery. Taking pictures in an overlap fashion is not that complex when on the ground. I think there are a couple of questions you need to address.

1. what is the quality you are looking for?
2. Are you trying to create one resultant image? If so, does that need to be accessible at the original resolution or will you be downsampling for the final use.
3. Are you planning to stitch the images together and at what overlap?


The approach to doing it has a lot to do with the purpose of the end product. Can potentially provide some suggestions with some more information.

Good luck with your project.

Thanks for your input sclaggett! I´ve been away lately so I didn´t see this message. I going to try to answer your questions:
1. I´m looking for a high resolution image. When I stitch all these images together it will be to big, much bigger than what is possible to print. So I could downsample it some but I still wanna make a really big high quality print from it.
2. I think I already answered that.
3. Yes. I´m stitching them together in Photoshop manually. I need quite much ovelap since my object isn´t flat. So I get some parallax problems that I have to adjust for manually. I would say that the ovelap needs to be about 30 % of the image.

It would be great to get your input.

Ulf

If it's not flat then using a standard gigapixel technique might be more appropriate? For a flatter perspective effect use a long lens from a distance. Motorised pan tilt heads are typically used. Commercial solutions are available, or do it manually with a geared head - slow but can be done...

Thanks! Unfortunately I can´t use a motorized pan tilt head. I have to stand really close to the object and I´m using a macro lens. So I have to move parallell to the object all the time. And it has to be as quick as possible.

Ulf

What about multiple cameras in a moveable rig? How fast does the object change? What is the time scale you are needing to capture in? Know that should be a matter of math to figure if you project is physically doable.

Multiple cameras would of course speed up everything. I guess that´s a money issue. I would say that I need to do it in between 30 and fortyfive minutes. If you look at the specifications for different robots you get the maximum speed. But that doesn´t help you a lot since the robot only should do relatively small movements with stops in between. My math skills is not sufficient.

Ulf

We you know the old adage: cheap, fast, good, choose any two. Since you need it to be fast, your only options are cheap and fast (which isn't going to be good) and fast and goodb(which isn't going to be cheap)