Article about "3d Laser Scanning"

carloscasas · Apr 20, 2016

Hello simracers.

My friend Francisco Corredera, mapping engineer in spain, has written an article in my website about 3d laser Scanning in Simracing.

http://www.simracingcoach.com/14-95-dolares/

And you can read the translation in english in website of another friend, Gonzalo, http://boxthislap.org

http://boxthislap.org/1495-dollars-part-i/
http://boxthislap.org/1495-dollars-part-ii/
http://boxthislap.org/1495-dollars-part-iii/

I hope you enjoy with the article.

Thanks.

Regards

xnorb · Apr 21, 2016

"Now the question is, do you still think 14,95 dollars is a lot of money?"
Well, of course. Other sims also have laserscanned tracks and sell them for way less.

A quick google search showed that you can rent scanners for about 3000$ per week (http://greatlakesgeomatics.com/services/3d-scanner-rental), let's say you send 5 people on track for a week. 5000$ for travel, 3000$ hotel, 1000$ car rent, 1000$ track fee (i have no clue on that one) 2000$ other expenses. Sums up to 15.000$

You could put employee costs, studio rental, track license and what not into that equation, but those are costs you have to pay anyways no matter if you laserscan a track or not.

Troy Eddy · Apr 27, 2016

I have no problem with iRacing pricing. You get what you pay for. You are not buying a game that will be obsolete in 2 years when they come out with the next version. You are getting a continuously updated racing simulation with the most realistic tracks and cars available. And when you buy the tracks and cars, it is a one time purchase for life.

I have never paid full price for anything at iRacing. They are always offering half price on memberships and discounts when you buy content in bulk. They also have $100 credit for $75 which I always take advantage of. So I only pay $7.85 for those tracks and that is a bargain for me.

xnorb · Apr 27, 2016

You can optimize the costs, no doubt. But this is not about iRacings overall pricing but how much laserscanning could possibly affect track costs. Which i hopefully have pointed out to have pretty low impact.

Other sims also release laserscanned tracks but ask way less for them.

Gijs van Elderen · Jun 30, 2016

"Laser" scanning is easy to do these days. There is a technic that creates a 3D image from pictures. It's a free app for all mobile phones called 123D Catch from autodesk.
You can create the picture sequence with any camera and put it in the PC version...

If you put the result (fbx) in a moddeling program you can have some nice results. There are some holes to fill in, but it creates a nice reference to get started.

I did these "scans" in 2 min. The app sends the pictures to autodesks. And after a few hours you'll get the rendered mesh back that you can download. That you can open in a 3D moddeling program.

Well yeah, it's not real laser scanning and there are some holes to fill in. But the result is a nice reference to start with.