Pricing Mesh's
18 messages in this thread
Sam,
I agree with John. Call Viewpoint! Nobody else sells meshes like they do.
Since my company does a little bit of custom digitizing, I'll add a few remarks
about the mesh you uploaded.
A.) Since it seems that you've defined a specific resolution for the mesh
you're most likely going to have to target a general marketplace. We've done a
few scans for various members of the medical profession and from looking at the
C2 you uploaded you're mesh is too detailed for alot of clients and "way" too
simplified for alot of others.
B.) The mesh appears to have been done with a stylus digitizer instead of laser
scanning, because your triangulated mesh looks like it is derived from "pick
points" not a split beam read. If you did use a laser scanner and have the
original data, it looks like you're throwing away alot of relevant data. You
may want to generate a number of seperate skeletons by decimating the original
data to various levels. Make sure you offer the original scan data in one of
your offerings because a fairly large protion of the medical profession enjoys
the ability to be able to use true scan data.
C.) 5 people, 2 years? Do you have all of the muscles and organs in addition to
the skeletal structure? Give us more detail about the rest of it.
D.) How ever you decide to market it, keep in mind that there are a number of
digitized skeletons in the medical profession already. They range from
resolutions far above the C2 you uploaded to lower res ones like the Viewpoint
skeletons.
Paul
Wouldn't life be great if we had vocabulary and metrics for a common language
to describe the resolution of a mesh? Raw triangle or polygon count or point
count won't do it.
We get calls all the time regarding the 3D-ROM: "I need a baseball. A
high-resolution baseball." How high is high? What makes "high" different from
"low with a great map"? Some people want 100 triangle humans. Yesterday, a
guy wanted flat 2D human outlines. Another wanted human arms *with detail down
to level of hair*.
At one thing can be stated with certainty: you can't get blood from a turnip.
For this reason, perhaps the best way to ship polygon-based models is to ship
the highest resolution, then recommend a decimation tool. But no decimation
tool is perfect; some hand-tweaking is always necessary, no?
Another insight from 3D-ROM sales: People will spend three days looking for a
model, because finding the model will save them time. They also want the
modeling company to psychically determine the suitability of purpose, to match
the model to the animation that their client wants.
I ceratinly would be very interested in seeing the skeletons that are of MUCH
higher resolution. Since I am in the medical profession I have done alot of
research into this and have not come across anything that is higher resolution.
There have been some things done with workstations and put out to videodisc
such as slice of brain, but the data is not available in mesh files. Even the
3d work that is being done in CT and MRI does not have the resolution, if it
did I would have pulled the data from that. I appreciate your input because you
are the first person that has ever mentioned there are high resolution
skeletons available. In regards to viewpoint see my earlier message. Thanks
Sam
Sam,
I have personally seen a number of skeletal structures that are phenomenally
high. I'm not sure what part of the medical profession you're in but several
medical research facilities on this coast have skeletal structures that are
truly phenomenal. The military research departments also have quite a
collection. I doubt that any of them are for sale but that's probably do to a
lack of a market. As to workstations, we run quite a few of them here. I pulled
you're mesh into Alias to view it.
We recently scanned a skull and the data was at least 10 times the resolution
of the C2 that you uploaded. The scan showed all of the various ridges and
bumps that exist on bone, it even showed the tiny ridges in the teeth that
occured from lack of brushing. Not to mention that it took all of about two
hours to do 12 scans, mesh them together and deliver the final mesh. That's why
I asked how you went about building your skeleton.
Exactly what type of laser scanner are you using? We're running a Cyberware
3030 on a MS motion platform attached to an Indigo2 with 384 megs of ram. And
it doesn't take anytime at all to digitize data. An 8 second scan of a human
face provides such a high level of detail that it will pick up a light 5
o'clock shadow. The first time I scanned myself I found a scar that I thought
had disappeared over 10 years ago. Not to mention that it simultaneously
generates 24 bit color texture map info. We do have a host of proprietary tools
to work with the data, but nothing beyond what most laser scanning facilities
run.
I understand your point regarding CT and MRI data, we've used the machines on a
number of occasions to get data from museum pieces. That's why we run the
Cyberware unit now.
What hardware platforms are you running on?
Paul
I certainly would like to talk with you in more detail regarding what you are
doing. In terms of high resolution of the skeleton, after critically looking
at them from a medical standpoint they are not ANATOMICALLY accurate. Let me
give you an example. You mentioned that your skull is high definition with all
the ridges, can you accurately discern where the nasal bone is?, can you see
where the inferior orbital fissure is? looking directly into the eye socket
can you see the 1)posterior ethmoidal crest? 2)inferior orbital fissure? Is
your skull scanned as one whole object? Did you know the skull consists of 22
bones? Its these little things which make the difference. In terms of how I
know its because I'm a Neurologist and have access to many of the high tech
toys and the availability of neuroradiologists. Also, I am working with the
University of Washington and they are one of the top schools in the country
when it comes to visualization, and they dont have any high rez skeletons. I
am not directly doing the scanning so I cant give you all the technical
details. One last thing and I hope this isnt too sensitive an issue. You
mentioned you have seen skeletons from low rez of Viewpoints to high rez. I
looked critically at viewpoints and felt it did not meet my needs, the last
price I have of there skeleton high rez is 5K. You can purchase, if you can
find one, a HUMAN skeleton for about 3K and from thoughts on the future of
VIRTUAL REALITY etc, is that virtual reality will still be for people who cant
afford the REAL thing!. This gets back to my original question about how do
you fairly price these things. Lastly do you have a number or address? Thanks
Sam
Sam,
Please don't take any of this stuff too personally. I'm definately not a
medical person and have little or no knowledge of the medical profession or
medical needs. Then again, by asking about pricing the skeleton on the Autodesk
forum you're not exactly dealing with the AMA.
Half of the stuff you asked about the skull is way beyond my knowledge. 🙂
I do however know a little bit about digitizing and meshes. With an investment
approaching a quarter of a million dollars in hardware and software solely for
scanning, we're fairly serious about mesh quality and usefulness. Our
digitizing tends to be for only in-house visulization projects and we've been
doing some custom work for several research facilities.
The reason I popped into the thread was because when you posted the original
message you mentioned laser scanning, custom code, proprietary software and
unequalled resolution, 5 people/ 2years. While I'm not interested in yet
another skeleton to add to our collections, I am interested in people/
organizations performing state of the art custom work. After downloading the
mesh, I was struck by several things:
a.) The mesh is almost definately not a laser scan product. The resolution
isn't even in the ballpark. The circular patterns on the round areas are
indicative of a stylus based digitizer.
b.) The data is not as well defined or decimated as it could be. If custom
tools were used to decimate the data, it is amazing that the final data is
identical to triangulated pick point meshes. In dispersing the point cloud, the
arrangement of the triangulated mesh could have been done alot better, leaving
you with more data in essential points and less data in non-essential areas.
Will Schroeder at GE Corporate Research and Development has written a number of
papers and collaborated on a number of projects that could drastically aid your
project in the area of point cloud decimation.
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c.) In comparison to the level of data that research facilities use, and the
data that we see on a regular basis, the C2 is fairly low res. I was expecting
to see something alot more defined. Although I didn't know how many bones there
are in the human skull, I do know that an accurate scan will show every jagged
edge of every suture and will reveal hairline cracks whereas a point stylus
scan will not. The people that we've come into contact with always have a
specific need and always request the ultimate level of digitizing. When I first
read your message I thought that I could refer things your way, After looking
at the C2 I realized that it wouldn't help most of the people we deal with.
d.) At the resolution of the C2, a single person should easily be able to build
an entire skeleton in under 2 months including decimation, touch up and
translating into any format needed. Even breaking the skeleton into every
imaginable piece shouldn't take a person any more than 6-9 months at the
outside.
That's why after viewing the mesh I asked about how the work was done and
commented on the fact that the level was not what I was expecting. I definately
didn't mean it as a slight and sincerely hope it didn't appear that way. The C2
is nice, it's just not what I expected.
Paul
P.S. – A good price would be under a thousand dollars, for wide spread appeal
you'd most likely definately have to come under $500.
Thank you for all of that info, I have just learned a tremendous amount in just
a few threads. I appreciate all of your input especially the pricing info. I
would be very, very interested in seeing at least some portion of your high rez
skeleton or skull. I did not take what you said as a slight, there is always
some pain in the learning process especially when I find out that there is more
out there that I certainly thought(G). Once again I would really love to see
what you are talking about. Thanks Sam
Sam,
No problem. What programs do you have to view it with? How do you need the data
formatted? We actually have a human skull here in the studio, so I'll see if I
can't throw it onto the digitizer this weekend. Do you have an Internet
account? CIS e-mail can get expensive.
Paul
The programs I have to view the data in are 3d Studio and any of many graphic
viewers if you just want to send graphic files. You can send it to me directly
at Samuel Coor 202 41 Ave NE Olympia, WA 98506 I look forward to it. By the
way I now have an anatomically accurate vertebral column, sacrum, ilium, and
coccyx. They WILL be made affordable thanks to all your input. Thanks Sam
Wow, Paul, that's quite a rig. Maybe if I came to visit you that thing could
find all the *hair* I had 10 years ago!<g>
May all your new face wrinkles be smile ones,
-Alan
Alan,
We could certainly try. 🙂
Paul
P.S. – I still haven't gotten over that horrible flying logo from the Luxor
ride. I'm not sure about you, but it syill haunts my dreams. :-]
re bad Luxor Logo:
Hee Hee…It probably wouldn't have been so bad if we didn't have to watch it a
hundred times in that stupid line!
The actual rendered scenes in the ride itself weren't bad, though. Nice
spotlight-in-darkness effects. I think I'll make a huge oblisk(sp?) and use
Gary's Scatter routine to make my own virtual underworld…
-Alan
I liked the actual show, I thought the promos and other hype was trashy.
It almost seemed like they decided at the last moment to add the promo stuff.
Paul
I know — It *did* have un "unfinished" feel to it, didn't it? Hmmm -I remember
thinking that- oops, they musta run out of money!
-Alan
Paul,
You've made some really insight points as has John F. Looks like along with
breaking new ground, new terminology needs to be developed as well.
-JE