GettingStarted
Welcome to Parsley! This wiki page provides information how to install and setup Parsley on a PC - for users and developers. If Parsley is new to you, we recommend to work through the Getting Started Tutorial below.
Make sure that you've read the SafetyNotes before continuing with this tutorial.
Subsequent to the installation tutorial, the first steps how to configure Parsley, in order to obtain satisfying scanning results, are explained on this page.
Parsley requires only a low cost hardware setup which consists of the components listed below:
- Standard webcam (observe, that rising resolution settings might lead to small frame rates).
- Robust reference body, made of stiff carton materials or even wooden plates.
- Battery supplied laser with laser ray extension lens (line shaped). Read the SafetyNotes again.
- Optional, but recommended: A kind of tripod, belonging to the reference body, where the webcam can be mounted (the cameras' position relative to the reference body must not change after the calibration had been performed).
The reference body should be made up of a ground plane, with two side planes mounted together perpendicular and the side walls should be placed onto the ground plane. Therefore the whole construction is shaped like cube with three faces missing.
The Calibration Patterns (pdf documents, containing the printouts are available), needed for the camera calibration should be glued onto the side walls. However, we recommend to use removeable calibration plates, made of e.g. stiff plastic material, where to glue the patterns on.
This sub paragraph deals with the installation of the Parsley, based on compiled binary files for common users. Before installing Parsley, make sure that your computer system fulfills the following requirements:
- Parsley is designed for Windows operating systems.
- Install the Microsoft .Net Framework 3.5 Service Pack 1 - download from the MicrosoftDownloadCenter.
- Install the Microsoft Visual C++ 2008 Redistributable Package (x86) Service Pack 1 - available at MicrosoftDownloadCenter.
After installing these software packages successfully, download the Parsley 0.2 binaries, which are available as ZIP file, from the Parsley Downloads page. Now, create a folder on the Windows partition (e.g. C:\Programs\Parsley) and extract the contents of the ZIP file into the folder. Your newly created Parsley folder should now contain several dll files, the Parsley executable (Parsley.exe) and a folder called Patterns, containing Marker Images and different pdf files with CalibrationPatterns ready for printing.
If your Parsley installation has been successful, the Parsley Welcome Window should appear soon after the executable file has been started.
Parsley users who intend making source code changes and to further the development of Parsley, shall find information, how to build Parsley using the Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 development environment, below.
Firstly, make sure that Microsoft Visual Studio 2008, supporting C# and C++, is installed on your computer system. Secondly, use a subversion client to check out the source code into a specified folder (e.g. C:\ProgramFiles\Parsley). Please find more information regarding the source check out and the repository address on page Source.
Thirdly, after checking out the source code, you need to download the ThirdPartyLibraries from the Parsley Download page and include them into the Parsley project:
- Download the ThirdPartyLibraries ZIP file and extract the contents into the specified folder, which contains the source checkout.
- The location where the source checkout is stored should now contain a folder ThirdParty.
- Open the folder and run the script file. Now the needed library files will be copied into the corresponding project folders.
As you can see, the Parsley project folder already contains Visual Studio Solution- and Project files. By double-clicking the solution file, the Parsley project will be imported automatically into the development environment. Observe, that Parsley consists of several C# sub projects and one C++ sub project, named Draw3D. Before you try to build Parsley firstly, make sure that you have chosen the Solution Platform X86. You can also enclose debug information by changing the Solution Configuration to Debug. For more detailed information open the ConfigurationManager.
Due to existing sub project dependencies try to build Parsley according to the building sequence below (All sub projects are C# projects, except Draw3D):
- Parsley.Draw3D (C++)
- Parsley.Core
- Parsley.Core.CalibrationPatterns
- Parsley.Core.LaserLineAlgorithms
- Parsley.Core.LaserPlaneAlgorithms
- Parsley.Core.BuildingBlocks
- Parsley.UI
- Playground
- SlickInterface
- Parsley Visual Studio provides a project dependencies menu in where you can specify the building sequence, so that you do not need to build the sub projects one by one, any longer. If you use other development environments, consider that building C# and C++ sub projects together in one project solution, might not be possible. In that case you need to create a separate C++ solution in order to build the Draw3D sub project.
When the Parsley application is started for the first time, no Parsley configuration is available and an empty configuration file CurrentParsley.cfg is being created in the folder, where the Parsley executable is located. Before a 3D scan with satisfying results can be performed, the camera needs to be calibrated and a set of Parsley parameters need to be adjusted.
A set of wiki pages will help you to perform these parameter settings. Furthermore, the page Videos contains a list of videos, presenting the most important steps in configuring Parsley and showing example object scans. The list below represents a summary how to set up Parsley step by step:
- Read the SafetyNotes one more time.
- Perform the Intrinsic Camera Calibration: Wiki page IntrinsicCalibration.
- Perform the Extrinsic Camera Calibration: Wiki page ExtrinsicCalibration.
- Set up the Parsley Scanning Options: Wiki page ParsleyOptionsMenu.
- Perform a 3D Object Scan: Wiki page Parsley3DScan.
- Have fun, and satisfying results :-).