Hero summary (top of post):
A 12"×12" stationary material scanner designed for production-grade, repeatable PBR capture. The rig uses four heights of individually addressable LEDs (cross-polarized) plus an optional fogged backlight glass to handle foliage/transparency. A fixed standoff keeps the camera ~3 ft from the subject for consistent geometry; sessions are orchestrated by a Raspberry Pi so each lighting state is captured to a known slot in the Substance/Designer graph.

Why it matters

Studios get an upgradeable, in-house scanner that’s cheaper than buying an all-in-one, captures higher-quality maps, and scales a custom library fast (materials, costumes, masks, plant leaves). Automated lighting states and cross-pol discipline mean cleaner albedo/spec/roughness with less artist cleanup and you can even rent it to shows or bulk-scan fabric swatches to build a proprietary library.

Workflow
Lock exposure/WB, mount swatch or object.
Automated LED sequence (per height/angle) → deterministic image set per material.
Optional backlight pass on fogged glass for leaves/translucency.
Ingest with sidecar (LED index → filename) so each image drops into the right node in Designer.