Gantry photos

[meekohi]

Here are some pictures of the spherical gantry I'm doing work on, the hardware is almost completely finished and we're on our way getting the scanning system working:

Comments

[herbie]

Magical floating checkered squares! oooh.

[monrovianvogue]

AWESOME!!!

(Um...What does it do?)

[flamingophoenix]

I was going to ask too.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gantry_crane

For once, not so helpful...

[meekohi]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gonioreflectometer

[meekohi]

The idea is that you can put an every-day object inside, then press the "go" button to scan the object. When you're done, you have a complete 3d model of the object in the computer AND measurements of exactly how light interacts with each point on the surface. Nobody has been able to do this before, because in general it's really hard to get the 3d model for objects with interesting reflectance properties, but we have a new technique for that.

[wondershot]

I bet the yellow box on the floor with the red button makes it go into defense mode.

[meekohi]

No, you're supposed to press the red button if it has you pinned against the metal frame bashing you repeatedly and crushing your bones.

[wondershot]

So I was at least right that it had something to do with defense.

[hamalkah]

Badass.