Oak Tree Bark (Quercus Robur)

Oak Tree Bark (Quercus Robur)

I have been using my Yi M1 DLSR camera and the Olympus M.Zuiko Digital ED 60mm f/2.8 Macro lens with a polarization filter for a while now. This combination is great for capturing close-up details of natural surfaces, such as tree bark. So I decided to use it to make a new free 3D scan of oak tree bark.

How I made the 3D scan of oak tree bark

In the forest near my home, I found a medium-sized oak tree with a nice and rough bark texture. The weather was overcast, dry and a bit cold, so my fingers were freezing while taking so many photos. But it was worth it, because the overcast sky provided a soft and even lighting that is perfect for photogrammetry.

To create the 3D model from the photos, I used Meshroom. The raw mesh had a lot of noise and artifacts, so I had to clean it up and retopologize it. Using Blender and the Quad Remesher add-on, I created a new mesh with a lower polygon count and better topology.

I then UV unwrapped the mesh and applied a multiresolution modifier to create different levels of detail (LODs). The textures from the original mesh were baked onto the new mesh using Blender’s Cycles renderer.

To show you how the model looks in different lighting conditions, I made some renders using an HDRI image that I also made myself. The HDRI is a forest lane with beech trees that matches the natural environment of the oak tree bark.

The result

The final result is a realistic and detailed 3D scan of oak tree bark that can be used for various purposes, such as rendering, game development, education, etc. The model has 12K textures for color, normal and roughness. It does not have a displacement map, but you can easily create one if you need it. The lowest LOD has approximately 64K faces, while the highest LOD has 16.3 million faces.

This model is free to download and use under the CC0 license, which means you can do whatever you want with it without any restrictions or attribution.