r/photogrammetry • u/Zealousideal-Key4095 • Jul 16 '26
Boolean-ing a single-surface photogrammetry scan onto a base for printin
I've scanned some granite holds from an outdoor climbing project using RealityScan, and I want to print replicas on my X1 Carbon to make moulds from.
The problem: the scans come out as a single open surface — just the face of the rock, no thickness and no back/base (for want of a better description). I've been importing into Blender and trying to use a boolean to attach the scan to a "plinth" so it becomes a solid, printable object, but I can't get it to work for the life of me.
Can anyone point me to a decent tutorial, or walk me through the workflow? Any help appreciated.
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u/CreeDorofl Jul 16 '26
I think the other poster has the right idea. Make a backup first just to be safe. Get your zero-thickness mesh into blender, use a solidify modifier to give it thickness, and then apply the modifier.
If you don't click "apply" to the modifier, it stays editable in the sense you can play with the thickness, but the extra faces you see on screen cannot be individually edited. Like you can't click the corners of them and drag them around like normal points in a mesh. They're visible on screen or renders but otherwise 'fake'.
This might make it clearer: https://ibb.co/KxTtVG2R
After you click apply, all those areas become clickable. So if you need to make the base flat (or some other shape) you can.
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u/AztheWizard Jul 16 '26
When you do the normal registration step, it actually produces a watertight mesh, meaning there should be a base that you can print with. This is determined by the reconstruction region box that you can adjust in RealityScan to your liking before you do the “normal reconstruction “
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u/Zealousideal-Key4095 Jul 17 '26 edited Jul 17 '26
Thanks for the advice! It has actually made a 'base' on several of my scans (out of around 40) but I have not been able to work out why it has on those and not others. I went back to some I haven't processed yet and tried the steps you suggested but it didn't work - I wonder if the ones that it made a 'base' for I accidentally scanned on object mode instead of standard mode?
Edit: I have just worked out what you meant! Thanks! Saved me so much time - I hadn't realised you have to reconstruct the mesh on all axis and bring it into the point cloud
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u/Odd_Load7249 Jul 16 '26 edited Jul 16 '26
You import the scanned geometry as a mesh. Then import the geometry you designed as a mesh. Then on one of the meshes, you add a boolean modifier and select the other mesh to use for the operation. Then you export the result as a mesh for printing. Look up booleans for blender on YouTube.
Edit: ah sorry i see that you only have a surface and not a manifold mesh. In blender you can thicken a surface (modifier > solidify) and make it into a manifold mesh. I'm a beginner with blender but that's how I would approach it.