Kaidan Meridian C-60 Object Rig, for QTVR Rotational Object Photography

Sure, you could design and build your own large, motorized object rig.
But whether it's built from two-by-fours, PVC pipe or Army surplus parts, it's still going to take a lot of time, effort and money.
And in the end, you're still probably going to be plagued with flexing, vibration, lighting and shadow problems.
With our Meridian C-60 rig, these problems are gone.
Since we didn't take the obvious and easy way out by utilizing a swing arm for our large design family, we have been able to avoid these problems entirely.
For example, with a large cantilevered arm design, even with a very stiff and heavy support structure, it's almost impossible to keep vibration and flexing under control.
Counterweighting helps to some degree, but it adds mass and exacts inertia penalties.
And, additional mass means more powerful and expensive motors.
Another way to solve the problem is to avoid the cantilevered arm altogether and to use a large U-shaped hoop.
By supporting the structure at both ends, the vibration and flexing problems are solved, but at what cost?
The mass and inertia problems are still present, but now the problem of lighting and shadow elimination must be dealt with. Object movie creation demands precise and flexible lighting setups.
Hoop-based rigs simply get in the way of proper lighting and cast unwanted shadows on the object being photographed.
With the Meridian C-60, there are no swing arms or supports to get in the way.
You can place lighting wherever it's needed and be sure that the structure will not get in the way.
The camera rides on a motorized carriage that moves along the inside of a curved "C" shaped track.
With this patented technique, the mass of the camera and drive mechanism stays the same no matter what radius of rotation is used (5 foot radius is standard on the C-60, optional larger radii frames available upon request).
The only thing that changes is the distance that the carriage must travel along the track. Kaidan intends to provide additional track structures with different radii in the future.
It should also be noted that since we are only moving the camera and carriage, we can use a compact and affordable motor package.
The C-60 is powered by two powerful, but precise, DC stepper motors that are controlled by Kaidan's eMCee (Motion Control Software), included with every unit.