After the data is received and approved, it is usually too late to fix the kinds of things mentioned in the preceding list. This is why it is crucial to make sure these things are checked immediately after the data is collected. Figure 14 shows scan data after it has been cleaned up.

A few companies are known for producing the best laser scanners. Following is a discussion of these well-known and respected manufacturers.

[Figure 15] The full body scanner creates fast and clean scans of an entire person. Image courtesy of Cyberware Corp.

Cyberware
Cyberware is one of the oldest and most widely used laser scanner manufacturers on the market today. Cyberware has equipment located at scanning centers in many large cities and makes products that address specific 3D scanning applications. Cyberware makes several high-resolution scanners for capturing 3D data and texture data from models and sculptures. These scanners are not considered specialized scanners, but they are considered some of the highest quality scanners for general use. These high-resolution scanners operate by using a turntable to move models in front of the digitizing head. The data that is acquired from these scanners has to be acquired in multiple passes. The major reason for this is that the models will generally have an arbitrary shape that has occlusions (where one part of the model interferes with the scanner's ability to see the part of the model beneath it) and surfaces that cannot be seen unless the model is rotated to another angle.

Data that is acquired from 3D scanners is commonly sampled in multiple passes. The problem usually lies in assembling the data into one continuous polygonal mesh after the multiple passes have been completed. Cyberware was one of the first companies to develop software that makes this task simple and easy to perform.

Two other products that Cyberware is famous for are the head scanner and full body scanner (Figure 15). These scanners are specialized for sampling 3D data from the human body, and they generate color texture information as well as 3D models of the people being scanned (Figure 16). The color information can be stored as texture maps in the traditional sense, or the color information can be stored per vertex in the database. In the latter case, thousands of vertices packed very close together give the impression of continuous color across the 3D mesh, but there is no map associated with the data.

[Figure 16] The head scanner creates a dataset of a person’s head including the color information.

The problem with these scanners is that the scanner's digitizing head rotates around the body around the vertical axis. This captures more than 90% of the information required to digitally re-create the person being scanned. The last 10 percent, however, is located at the top surfaces of the human body. These surfaces include the tops of the shoulders and head. Whenever the 3D data that has been directly acquired from the scanners is viewed, it is obvious that the tops of the heads have to be completely redone in order to be used as a digital model.

Also, because the scanners are so specialized for the purpose of gathering head and body data, they are almost useless for anything else. This is why most places that provide scanning services using Cyberware scanners need to have more than one scanner available to the customer.

Cyberware has pioneered many technologies related to 3D scanning. The original program that was developed by this company to create NURBS surfaces from scanned data is called CySurf (originally known as Ntest). This program seems simple when compared to some of the other programs available for surfacing today, but this functionality of wrapping NURBS surfaces onto polygonal surfaces was the first step toward making scan data truly usable for a film and video production pipeline.

Less expensive laser scanning options are available. These devices offer the advantages of flexibility and lower cost, but, as was stated previously, these are instruments that require a certain amount of skill and labor to get usable results. These machines are not office copiers that automatically spit out 3D data quickly and easily, although this is not rocket science. Any modeler who is motivated and interested can learn to do laser scanning.