Skanect 1.6 is here!

[Nicolas Tisserand]

Dear Skanect Users,

We are happy and proud to announce Skanect 1.6.

This is a long-due release, that includes a lot of performance improvements, visual tweaks and bug fixes, along with brand new features, among which "Uplink" is probably the most important of them.

Introducing: Uplink

Uplink allows you to use the Structure Sensor in Skanect, wirelessly.

You can learn more about uplink by watching this video: http://youtu.be/RLQA6wTOYf8

And if you don't know about the Structure Sensor yet, you should really check it out! It's here: http://structure.io

Uplink is activated when you start Skanect on a computer that doesn't have any sensor plugged into it. When this happens, your operating system may warn you about Skanect acting as a server. This is normal, and you simply need to allow Skanect to access the local network, and you won't see the message again.

Other New Features

• You can now upload to Shapeways (http://shapeways.com) directly from the "Share" screen.
  
• The Structure Sensor can now be used in Skanect, when plugged using its USB Hacker Cable.
  
• Sensors without a color camera, such as the Xtion Pro (non-live) are now supported. You can use them to produce colorless models.
  
• The "move and crop" command has been enhanced with more precise controls, and you can optionally engrave custom text in your model when plane-cropping models.
  
• Skanect now offers a manual color camera gain control, for sensors that support it.
  
• The vertical camera position is now customizable.
  

Mac OS X Improvements

• USB issues on Mac OS X should now be a thing of the past.
  
• Skanect's user interface will now behave properly on any retina (or non-retina) screen.
  
• Support for the Kinect for XBox has been completely re-implemented and should work a lot better than what it used to.
  
• As an added benefit, Skanect now also (experimentally) supports Kinect for Windows sensors on Macs.
  
• Issues with the Mac OS X 10.9 "App Nap" feature have been resolved.
  

Windows Improvements

• Skanect for Windows is now built against the version 1.8 of the Kinect SDK. Although not mandatory, we recommend that you update your Kinect drivers to this version too. They're available here.
  

Other Improvements

• The overall performance of Skanect has been improved, and a performance regression that appeared in version 1.3.0 has been squashed.
  
• Skanect's graphical appearance has been refreshed to better match Occipital's look.
  
• PrimeSense cameras plugged into USB 3 controllers should now function correctly.
  
• GPU reconstruction was upgraded to take advantage of the latest CUDA 5.5 release. We recommend that you update your graphics driver.
  
• GPU tracking loss detection has been improved.
  
• VRML export has been fixed and improved.
  
• File and folder paths containing non-latin characters should not be a problem anymore.
  
• Skanect doesn't crash when the sensor is unplugged unexpectedly.

Download Links

Last but not least, you can grab the new binaries here:

• Skanect for Windows (64 bit): Skanect-1.6.0-win64.exe
  
• Skanect for Mac: skanect-1.6.0-macosx-x64.zip

We hope that you will enjoy this new release as much as we enjoyed preparing it for you!

Happy scanning!

NT, for the Occipital team.

PS: The windows 32 bit version is still due, we apologize for this, and will ship it next Monday.

[Gianluca Cantoro]

WOW, that's a great news.

Is there any chance that this uplink feature may work with a raspberry transmitting signal from any primesense (i mean asus or kinect) via wireless?

Thanks a lot,

G.

[James Allan]

Wonderful update guys. Loving the refreshed interface and all the lovely new features/adjustments :)

[Christian]

Thanks for adding my feature request regarding "move and crop".
It really makes the usage much easier. THANKS !!!

Wireless solution also for Windows Desktop PC (e.g. Asus Xtion Pro Live) => +1

[Nicolas Tisserand]

Dear Skanect users,

The Skanect 1.6 windows 32 bit installer is now available too. You can download it here:

Skanect-1.6.0-win32.exe

Apologies for the delay, and thanks for the kind words about this new 1.6 update!

[fxrtst11]

One question. With the limit of the IPad CPU removed with Uplink, at what quality can the Structure sensor reproduced, say compared to the Carmine 1.09?

[Elias Font]

A little feedback about my experience with 1.6 

on mac it is magic - was 1-2 fps (in 1.5 - 1.6beta3), in final - 14-20 fps 

same 2011 macbook air on i7 

it scans a lot faster - now i can go mobile with kinect, but process now take twice more time than it used to

on pc with quad and geforce 630 i did not see any improvements on 1.6 compared to 1.5 or 1.6 beta3

also i tried to load scanned data on mac to process it in elder version - but when opening on win7x64 - it shows just empty box 

it tries to make some offline reconstruct, but same empty box stays

has format of files changed ? or some inner structure ?

[eyebee]

Congratulations guys on getting the release out there, looks fantastic and about to give it a test drive. Keep up the excellent work!

[eyebee]

At a first run it looks great (Mac), with an xbox Kinect 'feedback quality' set to 'high' it is kicking out 30fps (previous releases were almost half that!).

This sounds interesting:

"As an added benefit, Skanect now also (experimentally) supports Kinect for Windows sensors on Macs."

Anyone tested this and can you use 'near mode'?

Great release N&N!

[Nicolas Tisserand]

Hi Elias,

Whenever you get a chance, can you please share with us a .skn scanned on the Mac and which fails to load on Windows?

I'd be curious to reproduce this and fix it.

Thanks!

--

Nicolas

[Uwe Krill]

Hi Skanect team,

great new release, lots of improvements -> I love it.

Is there any chance to add a socket function (esp. for full body scans)?

Tkx 

Winfried

3Dmensionals.de

[chwl]

Thanks guys! There's a lot of improvements, I noticed the vertical camera position is now customizable.

How do we do so?

[skiller1234]

Hi - can you clarify this a bit when you have a sec?  Looking for a new laptop and was leaning to a Windows machine specifically in anticipation of the new Kinect.   That of course conflicts with the Mac approach I'd use for the structure - So if a mac is indeed safe going forward with other hardware it would really help in purchasing decisions! 

thanks much!

skiller

[Nicolas Tisserand]

Hello Uwe,

I'm not sure what you mean by "socket function". Could you please elaborate?

Thanks!

--

NT

[Nicolas Tisserand]

Hello,

You can do so by creating a file (name skanect-config.ini, for instance), with the following contents:

-----------------------------------------------

[BoundingBox]

center-y-as-height-percent = 0.1

-----------------------------------------------

0.1, above, means "10%" of the scanning volume height.

You then need to load that file in Skanect in the Prepare / New pane, as shown in this screenshot: https://www.dropbox.com/s/9v7t80sd2zsa4cv/skanect-config-file.png

We acknowledge this is not very user-friendly, and we'll do something more intuitive in a future release.

Hope that helps!

--

NT

[chwl]

Thank you for the instruction.

[Elias Font]

Hi 

I made processing on mac 

that errors was when I was trying to open in 1.5win what was scanned in 1.6mac 

in 1.6 win it opens and works 

but there is one thing - in 1.5 texture with .obj was saved in separate file (which is good for editing later) 

and in 1.6 - it all in one file 

maybe it is possible to add option to save it in separate files in next releases ?

[Nicolas Burrus]

Hi,

Did you select UV export and not per-vertex coloring? The behavior
should be the same in 1.6.

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[staciak]

But why is it not possible to scan with with a color texture? I´m using actually my iMac and iPad Air with the Structure Sensor.

Am Samstag, 5. April 2014 04:07:01 UTC+2 schrieb Nicolas Tisserand:

[Ben Gotow]

Just to echo what iRider said—is it possible to scan with color using the Uplink feature? I have a Structure.io sensor, the Structure app, and the Skanect app on my Macbook Pro—all up to date as of today. When I do a scan, it works great, except the model has no color. Asking Scanect to colorize produces the error "None of the recorded frames have color data." 

In the video announcing the uplink feature, I also noticed there's no color in their model either: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RLQA6wTOYf8&feature=youtu.be. 

Anything I'm doing wrong? This is killer, but I don't want to have to paint the models myself...

- Ben

[Nicolas Burrus]

Hi,

Uplink with color will definitely be supported. Although we already
showed it to some public events, it was not fully ready for this first
release, so color scanning with Uplink is not possible with the
current version of Skanect/StructureApp.

It will come soon, thanks for your patience!

[James Allan]

Can't wait Nicolas, the app as it is now is working really well and the control has been wonderful. Adding colour will knock it out of the park!

Waiting with much anticipation :)

We have another Zombie Survival Camp event coming up and we'll be using the structure and uplink extensively again.

[Spencer Lindsay]

Hi Nicolas,

Just got my Structure yesterday and am stoked to be learning your app.  Do you guys have a public release date for color support?  All the Occipital sales and marketing stuff lead us to believe that this was a color 3D scanner.. 

Your app, though currently colorless, is super easy to use and I look forward to scanning in color.

Thanks!

Spence.

[Angelos]

Hi and thanks for the amazing new features.

I've been trying for a couple of days to get the Structure sensor connected to skanect but with no luck.

They are both on the same wireless network but the uplink feature is not showing up on the iPad app.

Are there any special permissions needed or am I missing something else?

Thanks in advance for any response.

[Nicolas Tisserand]

Hello Spencer,

Color scanning is coming. You can check our current software status here:

http://structure.io/software-dashboard

You might also be interested by our latest Kickstarter update, here:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/occipital/structure-sensor-capture-the-world-in-3d/posts/888965

Thanks for the kind words!

--

Nicolas

[Nicolas Tisserand]

Hello Angelos,

Your tablet and computer need to be on the same wifi, via a router that does not block either of TCP and UDP traffic on port 6666.

You should probably check your firewall settings, and also make sure that the computer side does not block these ports.

Let us know!

Thanks,

Nicolas

[Michael Balzer]

I would suggest that the PC is on a fixed wired LAN connection of the WiFi router.  Many of today's routers have at least a four ports of either a 100 Mbps or 1 Gbps speed.  If this is not possible, make sure you are using at least N or AC on the 5 Ghz channel.  I am able to get 30 fps consistently on three different PCs varying from i5 to i7s, with Nivida GeForce GTX 660Ti, GTX750Ti, and GTX 850M  video cards using the above method.  I also strongly suggest changing your video card out with the GTX 750Ti since it uses the latest chip set that Nic has added support for in the latest version of Skanect. It is also draws less power and can be added to many PCs that would not have been able to use one of these higher performing cards in the past since it draws all power from the PCIe bus.

[Bob Greenyer]

I feel a little annoyed to say the least right now, I have just invested in a iPad Air only to go with my structure sensor and find I can't actually scan an object with colour - I'd have been much better of with a second hand kinect and skannect pro licence.

Can we have an update on when the colour scanning software will be available as it is now August!

[asimov_inc]

Same as me. I bhought a iPad 4 because I accidently ordered that iPad 4 brackets. Just so I could get started right away, now I both see that the iPad air is much better for this and I can't really do anything useful until coloring works. Which mean I could just get air brackets and a air version and wait for the real release. Just wasted alot of money to be able to work fast. The few things ive tried to scan has horrible results in good lightning. Not sure hoe much I believe in this company anymore as Ive seen nothing of honesty with them. Why not allow all access to forums before ordering? Were you afraid we would find out the issues?

[Mark Rogal]

Same boat guys. Bought an Air specifically for the sensor, which I have not received yet I might add. I did however today receive an email saying it was shipped. The last day of the fifth prommissed delivery. Also bought skanect while I waited the 5 or so months for the unit so I could start working only to find out that the regular sales had an option for a package deal. They did reimburse me a few bucks after i pointed this out. The company is sketch at best in my eyes so far until I see real results. The only good scans I've seen are from that iPad app that was released last month and I'm skeptical that those are real. I will keep the faith till I have this in my hands and see it work or not first hand. Also I think that the company has been suppressing bad reviews in the discussion boards, Facebook and Twitter. Have had a few posts deleted or never posted.

[James Allan]

I hesitate to respond to emails like this simply because I don't want to hijack the original intent of the thread here. But with that said, here I go:

I understand your frustration but you'll find the people generally on this forum and the two Nicks are very supportive. We'll try our best to help each other out and get people moving so they can start working with the devices. I would have wished for you to express your frustration in a more constructive way but there you go, it's very emotional and I suspect you're not sure how to remedy the situation. Let me add some words that I hope will bring some comfort.

The itsees3D app released recently does produce the great results you've been seeing. I can vouch for that as I was one of the beta testers. The only caveat at the moment is that if you're looking for dense geometry as well as colour, you'll be disappointed. If you are looking to scan in colour and eventually print, high density geometry is unnecessary as the texture captured supplies the "detail". I for one would prefer both worlds and with further development i suspect we'll see that with both itsees3D and Skanect very soon.

This is all very new tech as well, so you'll have to be patient while bugs, etc are worked out.

As far as I'm concerned, I've never seen any reviews or discussions suppressed on these forums or anywhere else for that matter. Both the Nicks, the people at Occiptal and members are very open and try very hard to support the users and community.

In closing, I can only speak for myself in saying that I hear your frustration but take it from me - the wait will be worth it. Hang in there, be nice to each other and feel free to post your questions and ask for help. 

I would recommend starting a fresh thread if you wish to continue this discussion and would like to hear feedback "from the trenches" so to speak from the users of the product(s).

Happy scanning!

[Adam Rodnitzky]

Hello,

Adam from Occipital here. I’d like to take the opportunity to update you guys on future Structure Sensor updates, and try to answer a few questions from this thread.

We have a great application in the works that will calibrate the precise relationship between your Structure Sensor and iPad camera.  We’re very excited to release it, and hope you will all find it worth the wait.  We’re finishing it now, and we’ll post a preview on the Structure Forums within a few days, and then submit it to the App Store.  Once you use this application, every single app built with the Structure SDK will have access to aligned depth and color.

Next, we’ll update the SDK’s Scanner sample to incorporate the new aligned color feature.  

Right around the same time, we’ll update Uplink to use the aligned color stream, which will bring the iPad’s color stream right into Skanect.

Bob - Thanks for your feedback.  It looks like you were not a Kickstarter backer, which means that we haven’t sent you a link to the Software Status Dashboard. We created this to help our earliest backers stay apprised of when new software becomes available - including depth and color alignment for the Scanner demo and Uplink/Skanect. Thanks to your feedback, we’re going to make sure our post-Kickstarter customers get sent a link to the dashboard, too.  For now, here’s the dashboard: http://structure.io/software-dashboard.

Asimov_inc - As for the results you’ve received so far, can you please share some with us at structure <at> occipital <dot> com? Perhaps we can help figure out what’s happening and help you get better results.  Often there’s a quick tip to help you get great results.  Scanning software is always getting smarter, but it still takes a few tips sometimes to get the most of it. 

We’d also recommend checking out the tutorials we’ve created at http://structure.io/getstarted and http://skanect.com/support.

Mark - as James said, the itseez3D model texturing is completely real.  The Itseez team has done a fantastic job with texturing.  Since they’re doing a custom texturing post-process, they actually avoid the need for pre-calibration, which means you won’t even need to wait for the new calibration app to begin capturing.

To see a handful of models captured by others, check them out via Sketchfab: https://sketchfab.com/models?q=itseez3d 

James - thanks very much for your kind comments.  We really appreciate all of your support and  are a fan of all of the great things you’ve already done with Structure Sensor, and Skanect before that.

For any deeper discussion, we’re always available to answer your questions at structure <at> occipital <dot> com.

Thank you,

Adam

[Bob Greenyer]

Dear Adam

Thank you for your considered response.

I was in fact an original Kickstarter backer - silver with iPad air mount and hacker cable.

I am still not clear from your response when we might be able to colour scan meshes... Having a calibration tool is interesting however does not actually do anything useful.

I have tried itsees 4 times but it just sits there saying "sending". Even if I could get it to work - it just does not do what I need it to do and what I was led to believe that the structure sensor and iPad air would deliver.

Bob

[Adam Rodnitzky]

Hi Bob,

First of all, thanks for backing us during our Kickstarter campaign - we appreciate the early support.

To answer your question, the calibration app is the prerequisite to allow other apps that can utilize color to do so. Once we know that the majority of Structure Sensor users have successfully calibrated the depth camera to the iPad's color camera, we will be enabling color in apps that can utilize it - and we'll be sharing more about that in the next couple of backer updates, and here as well. 

As for the issue you have experienced with the itSeez3D app, we have not heard of that error. Have you tried contacting their support at sup...@itseez3d.com? It can be a resource intensive app, and we've seen that closing other apps on your iPad while running itSeez3D can improve performance.

Thank you,

Adam 

[Bob Greenyer]

Dear Adam,

I understand the requirement for it.

Personally I would like to start working with something that was less than perfect but was actually closer to a practical tool.

B

[Mark Rogal]

A colleague who bought a sensor for iPad Air through the public sale a couple weeks ago received theory's last week. Totally unacceptable that someone who ordered a couple weeks ago got theirs before someone who ordered thought the presale back in March!! Was told mine wasn't be delivered yet because there wee no iPad Air brackets! Another false statement for "customer Service". Still do not have one in hand, got shipping notice yesterday, the last day of July that it has shipped. Should be here next weeks but filling regular sales orders before pre orders is just another slap in the face. Another in a long line of disappointment. We will have to see how this works when we get it to see if the disapoinments continue.

[Spencer Lindsay]

OMG can everyone stop whining? It's a super new technology and the Structure is cordless and portable, which is pretty damn cool. Give these guys some time to figure everything out. It's not like you're going to die without this stuff, right? Or are you? Because if your life is on the line, then yeah, I think you have a right to whine.

[Mark Rogal]

Easy now Spenser. I am and have been a big supporter on occipital and all their endeavors. Especially the Stucture Sensor. We all have or we wouldn't be here. We all knew that there might be limitations and/or bumpy roads ahead with this new and AWESOME technology. There however seems to be some setbacks on the the development or implementation side of the occipital structur sensor that I'm sure we're unseen and now have reared its head as it gets into the hands if developers and end users. I recieved mine today and initial impression aren't good. At least from a software angle. Haven't been able to capture a good scan from iseez3d. The demo apps were a bit more responsive but you could tell that they were probably "dumbed" down a bit for speed. I'm sure all these issues will be handled by the team at occipital. But now it's just not ready for prime time. It is a "developers" platform and everyone needs to know that. Saying all that I still feel that the functionality and out-of-the-box expectations were facilitated by occipital during their early demos, interviews, write-ups etc which is kind of misleading. I feel also that the shipment delays and the way they handled kickstarters, pre-orders and real retails orders and shipment were appalling. ALL kickstarts and then pre-orders should have been filled way before they started getting into the hands of people that purchased a couple weeks ago. I am a developer and have had a team on the ready to work with this and to developing reallly great apps, so yea, things have been getting to say the least, anxious. I'm not sure what your situation is or was but take a step back and consider the fact that you don't know all the facts and maybe take a more constructive approach. I am myself guilty of the same. In closing, (haha) we are all in this boat together and it's very exciting and I DO appreciate what occipital is doing here, I've been scanning for almost 2 years and this is what I was hoping would come out and it did! Let's all make some important applications for this and live happily ever after. On the other hand, if the results don't get better soon, Joe Schmo in his garage will be the next Kickstarter we will back and HIS revelation will be the answer, right?

[Spencer Lindsay]

Sorry about the vitriol earlier, the tone of some of the complaints was sounding pretty entitled and whiny but I do agree with you. Occipital's marketing lead me to believe that the structure would scan RGBD right out of the box and yes, selling units to retail customers before shipping to the Kickstarters is lame. Did they really do that?

Thanks for the level response dude, I don't generally get all flamey.

S

[Harsh Chopra]

Hello Michael,

I am also trying to se structure app with skanect but not able to get high FPS.

Can you please let me know the wifi router you used for get 30 fps?

-Harsh