<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html charset=windows-1252"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;">Hi,<div><br></div><div>My name is Antoine. I’m a senior developer at Carbomap. Our core business is forest monitoring using airborne laser scanner (lidar).</div><div>You might have seen some of our graphics/video on BlenderNation lately:</div><div><a href="http://carbomap.wordpress.com/2014/02/11/free-forest-mapping-graphics/">http://carbomap.wordpress.com/2014/02/11/free-forest-mapping-graphics/</a></div><div><a href="https://www.sharein.com/invest/pitch/508176573/mri-scan-for-forests">https://www.sharein.com/invest/pitch/508176573/mri-scan-for-forests</a></div><div><br></div><div>We are currently designing a new multi-wavelength lidar system (hardware and software) specifically tailored for forest monitoring. For this I have developed a ray tracing engine in IDL (<a href="http://www.exelisvis.com">www.exelisvis.com</a>) to simulate the system response. We use Blender to create our 3D virtual scene/world.</div><div><br></div><div>This setup works but is a bit tedious as we need to export the scene to a specific file format and then process the file into our engine. I also think that we could benefit (and not need to reinvent the wheel) from all the texture/material already present into Cycles… bottom line this would facilite the implementation of the overall simulator.</div><div><br></div><div>So I was wondering, as a Blender user, if the direct integration of our simulator into Blender could be easily achievable.</div><div><br></div><div>Basically what we need to simulate the system response is:</div><div>- a mesh light that project a light beam with a 2D gaussian shape (kind of spot light) -> this act as the laser source</div><div>- a camera -> this act as the optical scanner/PMT photon detector</div><div>- and the ability to get the travel distance camera-object-light -> to model the time response system</div><div>- and the shader value/response -> to model the light/mater interaction (similar to physical render based engines)</div><div><br></div><div>So two questions:</div><div>1. Do you think this could be easily easily?</div><div>2. If so, does anyone has valuable guidance on how to get started?</div><div><br></div><div>PS: I’ve been already scouting the source code, and I can somehow understand the overall structure/sens of it, however it is always difficult and intimidating to get into a huge piece of code with any guidances/help. Not to mention that C++ is not my native language… so still struggling and stumbling sometimes.</div><div><br></div><div>PS2: We are a commercial company, but we don’t see (nor seek) any commercial outputs from this development, beside being able to design and develop a better hardware. If we succeed, we will most likely release this simulator to the public and scientific community.</div><div><br></div><div>Thank you for your time.</div><div>Cheers.</div><div>Antoine</div><div><div style="text-align: -webkit-auto; orphans: 2; widows: 2; word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;">-------------------<br>Dr Antoine Cottin<br>Senior Software Developer/Analyst</div><div style="text-align: -webkit-auto; orphans: 2; widows: 2; word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;">Carbomap Ltd.<br>7th Floor, Appleton Tower<br>11 Crichton Street<br>Edinburgh<br>EH8 9LE<br><a href="http://www.carbomap.com">http://www.carbomap.com</a></div><div style="text-align: -webkit-auto; orphans: 2; widows: 2; word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;">+44 (0)7577 444-046</div></div><div apple-content-edited="true"><div style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); letter-spacing: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;"><div><br></div></div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><br class="Apple-interchange-newline">
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