Project
Orbiter v0.1 — Lab-Kit Pan-Tilt Camera Rig
A two-axis Wi-Fi-controlled pan-tilt camera rig for taking calibrated photo sets of small objects. Open hardware + firmware + server + UI, packaged as a lab kit you can build on a weekend.
Results
What a scan actually produces: the hemisphere of camera poses (each frustum is one shot, with its photo pinned to the frustum), plus the dense COLMAP point cloud reconstructed from those photos. Switch objects in the top bar, toggle layers, or expand full-screen.
A two-axis Wi-Fi-controlled pan-tilt rig for small objects. The platform spins under a camera arm that pitches between horizontal and straight-down; at any pose the server records a photo with its 6-DOF camera extrinsic.
Under the hood
- CAD — printable parts + full assembly (
.glb/.fbx/.obj). - Firmware — ESP-IDF v6 on ESP32. Treats the rig as a generic 2-axis IP actuator with absolute encoder feedback (AS5600 + AS5048A).
- Server — FastAPI. Owns the scan-session state, talks to the ESP32 and the camera, writes manifests and photo files.
- UI — Vite + React + react-three-fiber. Two tabs: Scaner (live 3D + motion control) and Library (sessions + hemisphere of photos).
- Optional COLMAP container consumes the session's SfM-priors JSON to jump straight to dense reconstruction.
Machine Itself
Treat this as a kit, not a product
Orbiter v0.1 is a sandbox for testing ideas. If your bench has different parts, the architecture should still work — swap and adapt.
We're showing the application here, not selling a finished build.
Get the code
Two-axis Wi-Fi pan-tilt camera rig — CAD + ESP32 firmware + FastAPI server + Vite/R3F UI + Docker stack + optional COLMAP container. Lab kit, v0.1.
Code is Apache-2.0; hardware designs are CERN-OHL-S-2.0; docs are CC-BY-4.0. The latest activity is in the devlog below.
Project blog