Camera for P40

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Zahner
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Camera for P40

Post by Zahner »

We are currently using an ISTAR camera in conjunction with our P40. Are there any other options out there that you guys recommend?

Lately we have had issues with the ISTAR processing/completing the photos which result in not being able to color the point cloud and issues with it freezing up causing us to have to power off and sometimes even unhook the main battery. Do any of you that use the ISTAR have issues?
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Re: Camera for P40

Post by stevenramsey »

The external Camera that sits on top the scanner is not bad and at least is fully intergrated. There is a slight paralax but for colorizing not a isse
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Re: Camera for P40

Post by mlang »

We used the same setup for many projects without any issues. Have you ever updated the firmware?

Best,

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Re: Camera for P40

Post by steves01x »

iStar is good when it works in terms of speed / work flow but so many of them freeze and have issues.

Although i have not used it, i believe the LizardQ is the quickest/highest quality option out there for an external camera....at a price!
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Re: Camera for P40

Post by BrettH »

There is always the camera setup/mounted with a nodal ninja then run through PTGui to create panos/cubes to import into cyclone, quality a lot better than istar but a bit longer on workflow.
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Re: Camera for P40

Post by Ioannis »

As i know istar wanted an adapter to be at 34.4 cm height, if you use any panorama head like nodal nidja or others must be in the same height as the instrument?
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Re: Camera for P40

Post by Rikore »

We have an iStar, but mostly use a Canon 80D with fisheye and nodal ninja setup. You can set it for 6 or 8 photos. Nice thing about it is you can take extra photos should a car or person get in the image. All together about $2400 usd.
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Re: Camera for P40

Post by Scott.Warren »

Ioannis wrote: Tue Feb 18, 2020 8:14 pm As i know istar wanted an adapter to be at 34.4 cm height, if you use any panorama head like nodal nidja or others must be in the same height as the instrument?
The camera systems that work the best are ones that take their images in the same position as the laser's mirror. This is to avoid Parallax, as others have mentioned. This is where the height of the camera should match that of the laser mirror. The issues is that if a photograph is taken that is from a different location/perspective of the laser's path, the colors will be applied with a skew. You run into issues of colors not matching well with the cloud data, which can really look junky. I find it can be a battle to align external cameras that are offset, to what can be an automatic process with images that are taken from a well aligned camera.

PTGui isn't bad, and does have batch processes to create different types of images.

Cyclone can import Pano's/cubes in bulk, kinda.

We have a Z+F 5006h with an external camera that is no where near the laser, while the images are pretty good (for the age of the machine), coloring the cloud always looks questionable. By comparison, a P50/RTC360 where the camera is much better placed,the clouds are colored really well.
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Re: Camera for P40

Post by MajorDomo »

Scott.Warren wrote: Tue Feb 18, 2020 9:00 pm By comparison, a P50/RTC360 where the camera is much better placed,the clouds are colored really well.
The P50 has parallax, albeit just a tiny indistinguishable amount, as the camera system is copalnar, but not concentric with the laser nodal point. in real terms you'd have to be looking at something very close to the scanner, at an acute angle to it. But for all effects it can be considered parallax free.

The RTC360, that one has loads of visible parallax, no way to sugar-coat it,it even has several parallax errors, one per each of the cameras...It's ok for documentation, but it sure as hell is not something you can rely for exact feature picking.

Slow and accurate versus quick and not accurate...
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Re: Camera for P40

Post by Formula1982 »

The cheapest and arguably 'best' solution for quality and lowest chance of failed captures is a Nodal Ninja bracket with a good DSLR camera and good lens.
The downside of this, is it requires quite a bit of time in post processing to organise the photos, stitch them then colourise. You're exchanging automation for a much more manual process. Time on site isn't much different though.
What it gives you is the ability for the surveyor to QC each photo almost without thinking about it at the point of capture.

The iStar is probably the best option for an automated solution for most who don't have budget for a more costly option.
If you do have budget, then i'd go with a LizardQ or Spheron. Good automation and very good quality images.

Your other option, if the jobs you use the P40 for would still be suitable, would be to consider trading in the P40 for a RTC360 (if your preference is to stick with Leica kit), which has exceptional photo quality and does it all for you.
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