Leica External Camera Kit

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Slewis33
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Leica External Camera Kit

Post by Slewis33 »

Hello All,
I am looking for opinions based from actual users of Leica's External Camera kit, the Canon unit that mounts on the top of the scanner with a Leica supplied bracket and then connects via USB.

What are your past experiences with the External Camera Kit?
Do you have a favorable opinion or a negative opinion?
What is your typical workflow with the camera kit?
What is the length of time of the imaging procedures?

Thanks
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Re: Leica External Camera Kit

Post by Jamesrye »

I've not used that particular unit - though we used an external camera on a nodal ninja mount. An external camera solution like this will likely suffer with parallax issues.

My advice is to try an istar camera first. It's fast and colourisation of scans is fast, automatic and accurate.
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Re: Leica External Camera Kit

Post by Slewis33 »

Thanks for the reply.
I'm not too excited about iStar as then I have to have a second set of legs to carry around and will have to leapfrog setup to setup. I want to setup...scan...and go
I'm all about targetless registration and fast efficiency in the field. Although sometimes I use targets if I need to setup on control.

I have heard bad things about the ninja but have not heard many comments on the external camera at all.
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Re: Leica External Camera Kit

Post by pburrows145 »

Cyclone 9.1.3 has new automatic colourisation options for the official external camera workflow (non Nodal ninja). This might be what you're after.
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Re: Leica External Camera Kit

Post by Slewis33 »

Yup, that's the plan...and one is on it's way :D hopefully it works well as I think it could be a perfect solution to the slow imaging of the C-10.
I just wanted to see what others have experienced.
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Re: Leica External Camera Kit

Post by Jamesrye »

You can find some comments from other users if you google:
leica external camera kit site:www.laserscanningforum.com

There are advantages to using a DSLR in that you can choose exactly when to take a shot (thereby making sure there aren't passing people or cars in your scene. You can also take multiple shots and mask out areas. If you use the istar with HDR in a busy street scene then you'll get a lovely image with lots of ghosts!

The istar has advantages because it's all automatic and can do HDR - it's great at night too. I haven't had any parallax issues with it. Images stitch perfectly to the point cloud because it uses some clever depth mapping method.

With an external DSLR - especially one that's not at the nodal point, you are likely to have *some* parallax issues close up. Whether this is significant to you or not is another question. If you are very concerned about accurate image overlay then make sure you test the solution first!
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Re: Leica External Camera Kit

Post by Rikore »

We use the Cannon External Camera with our P40. Only issue so far is the parallax when scanning close up. We are finding that there are many uses for the camera kit especially when scanning heavy traffic areas. It is well worth the investment and I've already used Cyclone 9.1.3 with it.
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Re: Leica External Camera Kit

Post by Slewis33 »

Thanks for the replies, roughly how much error are you seeing up close? Are we talking millimeters or centimeters?
I don't think it will be too much an issue for us. Our use case is for clean colorized point clouds to be used in Cloudworx for Navisworks comparison and to push to our clients utilizing Jetstream Viewer.
Mainly for me it's the speed in the field, I hate waiting on imaging, and I am hoping this is much faster.
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Re: Leica External Camera Kit

Post by Rikore »

Using the Cannon 70D the worst I have seen in parallax was about 1.5 cm. The scanner was in between library shelves at about 2 feet distance. Time wise, it takes about 30 seconds for the six photos and maybe a minute to setup the camera. One note is the camera does block overhead views like the handle would. What I like about the external is I can take a second or third set and before importing I can swap photos around.
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Re: Leica External Camera Kit

Post by LeicaUK_RC »

Does this guide offer any help or advice?

http://www.sccshds.co.uk/support/Pxx_Ex ... d_v2.0.pdf


youtu.be/
Leica Geosystems
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