A low-cost digital 3D insect scanner

Abstract

Collections of biological specimens are essential in entomology laboratories for scientific knowledge and the characterization of natural varieties. It is vital to liberate useful information from physical collections by digitizing specimens, allowing them to be shared, examined, annotated, and compared more readily. As a result, current research has concentrated on developing 3D modeling machine systems to digitize insect specimens. Despite many great outcomes, these systems have certain drawbacks. In this research, a new scanning machine is proposed for creating 3D virtual models of insects. Our method has overcome certain previous constraints by aiding in the automation of the entire imaging process at a low cost, lowering shooting time, and generating 3D models with accurate color, high resolution, and high accuracy of insect samples with small sizes and complicated structures. Because of its ease of installation and modification, our system may be expanded and utilized in a variety of settings and areas.

Keywords

• 3D reconstruction
• Entomology
• Photogrammetry
• Structure from motion