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Published 2 Apr 2018
I wanted to automate the creation of 360 degree animated GIF photos. The obvious way to do it appeared to be to use an Arduino board to control a stepper motor and synchronize the camera. I had previously created such animations by manually moving the camera and taking many photos, then manually aligning the images and stitching them together to get a more or less smooth animation. But this requires a subject that stays still as it takes a lot of time, and the images inevitably are slightly out of alignment.
Doing it the hard way, the first animation shows the raw frames jerking about, and the second shows the manually aligned frames giving a smoother animation:
Finished result, trimmed manually adjusted frames:
Animation created by trying to move a camera around the subject at a fixed distance.
Overview
The advantage of automating this by putting the subject on a rotating turntable is that the camera, lighting, distance to the subject, alignment and background all remain static. Additionally the number of images taken to get a smooth animation can be easily adjusted, and frames are in alignment without the necessity of editing or scaling to rectify variations in camera distance etc.
This was to be my first Arduino based project, so I looked for examples that had already implemented the tasks required. I came across shapespeare-scanner, a homemade 3D scanner to create 3D models. I didn't need 3D models, but just the basic automated image capture. So I purchased an Arduino Uno board, plus LCD shield and stepper controller module. I already had a bunch of stepper motors, so set to work.
Hardware description
- Arduino Uno clone (duinotech UNO classic r3, p/n XC-4410)
- LCD keypad shield clone (duinotech 2 x 16 LCD Controller, p/n XC-4454)
- Stepper Motor controller (duinotech L298N based, Dual Stepper Motor Controller, p/n XC-4492)
The programs
The results
Below are some initial scans, still a bit of work to do, but promising results:
Animation of a dead longhorn beetle found outside our house.
Animation of a 'valve' (plate) from a chiton shell.
References and Additional Resources
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- http://www.regard3d.org/, converts photos of an object into a 3D model.
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