GreenSpider test drive on existing buildings

In my research, I'm deeply concerned about representing existing buildings in BIM domain. Thence, historical buildings are considerably a further reason for my interest. GreeenSpider was originally imagined as a piece of code able to traslate points as reference in Revit, with particular interest in Rhino+Grasshopper's parametric morphologies. However, dealing with real buildings, translating decimated point clouds from laser scanning or digital photogrammetry appeared to be feasible as well.

This post is intended as a practical example of GreenSpider implementation in real world documentation: in this case I would introduce a working pipeline on vault modeling in Revit from an accurate TLS survey.

The Kinect wall of fame

Even if with lots of troubles in mind and a very few spare time, I keep working on Kinect developing aimed at point cloud extraction. Now that the official Kinect for Windows documentation by Microsoft is consolidated, I'm trying to write some c# code to create a little piece of software for dynamic point cloud collection.

More after the cut.

GreenSpider 2.1 is out and it's much powerful than ever.

GreenSpider 2.1 is ready for download from this page. This plugin is now much more complex, and it works both on Revit 2013 and 2014. GreenSpider Translator 1.2 can now open files from customized locations with multiple browsing. Inside the Revit environment .GSP files can be now selected from custom path. The GreenSpider 2.1 user interface is much more compact and intuitive (GSCurves and GSPoints are now part of a less intrusive drop-down menu). XYZ files can be now sorted following X or Y axis.

The brand new installation system is more sophisticated than its predecessors. Since the plugin was written taking advantage of RevitAPI2013, it works on both Revit 2013 and 2014. Please be sure to choose the right version during the install process.

GreenSpider 2.1 is here!

Faro Scenect and dynamic point cloud extraction using Kinect

These days I'm testing my brand new Microsoft Kinect with this amazing free software by Faro. Scenect in fact is a Scene LT clone which embeds some Kinect drivers by PrimeSense and OpenNI. Even if my lab at University is waiting for Kinect for Windows supply from Microsoft, I bought myself a Kinect sensor in its XBOX360 version. Differences are not so massive (Kinect for Windows is intended for PC usage, so lenses can focus beginning from 40cm. while the XBOX release needs at least 80cm.) and Scenect supports both hardware devices.

The purpose of my post is to spare some comments an a promising real time technology, aimed at dynamic indoor 3D capturing with not GPS driven and very low-cost hardware.

123D Catch, photogrammetry in the cloud

 A netsuke is a tiny sculpture that was invented in 17th-century Japan to serve a practical function: traditional Japanese garments in fact had no pockets so people had to place their belongings in containers (called sagemono) hung by cords from the robes' sashes (obi). Whatever the form of the container, the fastener that secured the cord at the top of the sash was a carved, button-like toggle called a netsuke. A little, funny, ivory netsuke was used as a test shape to carry out some experiments on 123D Catch, the digital photogrammetric software by Autodesk part of 123D suite.

Read more of my experiment and some updates!