http://www.ten24.info/?p=976
It looks like its a service you can buy, but you cant own the software? Looks like a great software!
Big ben posted that thread about 3d scanning a while back (different soft) I really want to get back to seeing what I can do with that as time permits. If you learn anything more about the OP software, calico, please let us know.
I've been on three SVP field trips (Scotland, Utah and California) where we spent a lot of time looking at fossil trackways. Paleontologists that study them use a technique in which they take a series of still pictures that they feed to some software that generates a 3D surface. It sounds pretty interesting. The technique is called "photogrammetry" and is a sort of poor man's LIDAR. I have been thinking about trying it myself.
http://www.archaeolandscapes.eu/index.php/en/capture/aerial-photography/218.html
Look up AGI Soft on google. You can download a free trial version. Exactly what you're looking for.
The Agisoft Standard Edition is only $179. That is very tempting. Looks like you have to go through distributors to get it. The high-end seems to be PhotoModeler. But it is sort of expensive. I'm seriously considering it. PhotoModeler uses both stills and video. They can both produce polygon models.
http://www.agisoft.ru/
http://www.photomodeler.com/index.html
Update: I uploaded and installed the AutoDesk free application called 123D Catch that bigben started a thread for. This is a cloud app so none of the processing is done locally. This is a bad sign. I have a Logitech HD Webcam and it came with a nice video app which was also dependent upon some sort of cloud service. When Logitech stopped offering that service the software no longer worked. I don't want to get dependent on any cloud apps for this reason as well as the security issues involved with passing your valuable material through the hands of untold faceless third parties. The uploader even requires you to add at least one key and a description, presumably for the purpose of facilitating people you've never met to browse and make use of your models. I don't care if its just a test model but I have problems with passing to the general public information for projects that have a level of secrecy attached to them.
Update: I just finished uploading my photos (17 of them). The project was a complete fail. I guess I needed a lot more photos with a smaller angle increment between. The application might also need some calibration hints to be able to make sense of the images.
Update: I finally got it to work with a small Vietnamese marble urn.
[attach=1]
Quote from: gregtee on February 28, 2013, 10:08:10 AM
Look up AGI Soft on google. You can download a free trial version. Exactly what you're looking for.
I downloaded and tried out the demo version of AgiSoft PhotoScan. I was impressed so I bought a license. It does look like it is exactly what I need and it was only $179. Thanks a bunch gregtee.
Quote from: TheBadger on February 27, 2013, 08:50:52 PM
It looks like its a service you can buy, but you cant own the software? Looks like a great software!
TheBadger: You can buy the software here: http://www.agisoft.ru/
First select Standard Edition then download the software. It even runs on MacOS. I don't know if that includes OSX. This is the full version but you can't save anything to disk unless you buy a license and enter the serial number to activate all features.
Interesting stuff. Could you post if you have some results?
Quote from: Dune on September 11, 2013, 03:26:06 AM
Interesting stuff. Could you post if you have some results?
Yes. The results are very interesting. I did a screen print of both models that I produced with the two different packages. The pictures below are oriented in the same way for ease of direct comparison. I think AgiSoft PhotoScan proved to be superior to AutoDesk 123D Catch. 123D Catch preserved some strong reflections as you can see in the upper level quadrant of the model. Both trials used the same photographs which were taken in a pool room that has windows in the roof like a green house. The AgiSoft image seemed to do a lot more for eliminating reflections. The AgiSoft model seems to be very flat and upolished as compared to the 123D model. Of course, since you will want to be adding your own reflections coming from the environment of your choice, it is desirable to have no reflections in the surface image of the model. I was tempted to photograph this object in a soft box but I am glad that I didn't. This make-shift trial served as a better "acid test".
Since reflections are going to change for every viewing angle, PhotScan seemed to be able to realize when unusual coloration was present and did something similar to ignoring or lowering the importance of "outliers". 123D Catch seemed to weight the photo with the best oriented view more highly than the others for each part of the image without regard for unusual coloration. I am pleased that the local computing solution won out over the cloud computing system. And I am glad that the Russians have joined us in the cooperative cybercommunity. This is my first purchase of a Russian software product. Their manuals are well written but the lady narrating their tutorials is a bit difficult to understand. She needs to learn how to use her microphone to avoid air burst pops when pronouncing words with the letter "P".
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_insfYWPkA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-fYOB8VPDnk
Pablo it depends on many things probably but the model i got in AgiSoft demo had many unneeded polygons.
In 123D Catch there weren't any. I used the same photos.
Just saying. This was my first try and maybe there are some fine tuning needed anyway.
If you have time i would like to hear more test result from you about Agisoft,
because i don't like Autodesk so much and would prefer a software like Agisoft.
It is not so expensive anyway .
When i looked at my account on the AutoDesk 123D Catch web page , the photos i used and the files were there.
I don't like that. Since then i don't use it.
Both of the apps created a fair amount of geometry from the table cloth which is a pale orange. I had edited some of that away in the 123D Catch model and that's why you don't see it. I didn't do that for the AgiSoft model. Also, both had created some anomalous geometry along the bottom of the vase above the base which you can see in the photos. It seemed to be worse in the 123D model so AgiSoft did better there too. There were a lot of stray points all around the model created with AgiSoft after doing an "align photos" operation which generates the point cloud. These I edited away before doing the model generation. The point cloud editing takes a little getting used to but it works well. This probably spared me from some unwanted geometry. What you can do with the 123D Catch software to guide the process is more limited as it is done offsite in their cloud. The AgiSoft app does things in three steps and allows you to save the project along with intermediate data (the demo version won't save), do some editing and then retry a subsequent step again. AgiSoft had my poly count set to 200,000 which is quite high so I lowered it in another attempt. The editing of the point cloud and lowering the poly count before generating the model might solve your problem with generating unwanted polys. It also has a masking feature which will prevent it from generating these stray points. But you have to do it with each photograph (and you might have a lot of them) and this can be quite labor intensive. I haven't used this feature. It is probably more necessary to use when you have a lot of detail in the background and you are doing a 360 degree scan of an object. You may not need this when digitizing landscapes.
One thing I found very frustrating with 123D Catch is the matching of landmark features between photos. It numbers the points for you and I couldn't find a way to change the point numbers to match points assigned earlier. I just kept deleting them all and starting over. Then it wouldn't even present all of the photo options to let me tell the software where all of the corresponding points were. I got tired of fighting with it then started to look at AgiSoft. I really like it a lot better.
I would like to do another test project with an environment instead of a model. I'll plan to post my results here so you can read it. I have to say that I was apprehensive about buying something from a Russian site. I get so many scam emails coming out of Russia that I didn't want to give them my credit card information. But AgiSoft accepts payment from PayPal so that's what helped me decide to go ahead and buy it. They have a nice forum like this one that I have already posted to.
Thanks Pablo for the detailed answer.
I did not used it in that way but i think this kind of software might be better or easier to use with environments .
I will wait curiously for your future post with Agisofts projects .
I made the 123D Catch AT-AT test public.
http://www.123dapp.com/FullPreview/Index.cfm/ID/786523
If i had used a row of photos that catches the model from underneath too it would be much better probably.
PS: If you haven used that webpage, click that "3D view" cubic icon to see the model directly in your web browser in 3D.
Thanks for posting all your information, PabloMack. I'm sure an environment scan would provide better results as small artifacts will hardly be noticable. I think though, that things like rivers and windows will add another problem. And you get all the trees with it, which will add a lot of polys, and they won't be very nice (I think). Good for distant/overall views but not for close ups, I'd say.
Looking forward to more tests. You should take a plane and circle some interesting area....
Kadri, your model is supurb. I would think that it was an injection-moulded model that you bought from the store. Are you sure you aren't just pulling my leg? ;)
I live in Houston, Texas which is really boring geologically. But my wife and I are going to California in a few weeks to attend the SVP meetings and will be taking a week or so for nature watching and some photography. I'm planning to take some test shots there.
Thanks Pablo :) That model came out better then i thought .
Working on the images earlier (maybe some noise reduction etc)
and more suitable backgrounds for objects could make the output better probably.
It was the cloud approach from Autodesk that throw me away.
I am seriously considering Agisoft for a project if needed Pablo.
Depends on you too ;)
This came just to my mind:
http://www.planetside.co.uk/forums/index.php/topic,16755.0.html
Hey guys.
Since this thread is pretty broad in terms of subject info, I'll ask this here.
Have any of you come across any info on a affordable hand held 3D scanner? Anything?!
something like this http://www.creaform3d.com/en/metrology-solutions/portable-3d-scanner-handyscan-3d
Im a little confused about why a 3D printer is affordable but a hand held scanner is not. I feel like I would rather buy a scanner than a new camera if I could. Seems ideal to the other options we have been talking about in this thread and others
Any thoughts, ideas?
Im interested for both 3D image making like most of this forum, but also in 3D printing and milling. The scanner seems to be the missing part in what is obtainable (milling can be ordered out like rendering)
Thanks
Hey Michael here is a link to a cheap solution
http://www.david-3d.com/
some guy showed a few pretty decent (for that price etc) examples
he had done with it on ZBCentral some years ago.
Just guessing Michael i think it is more about the software with scanners then the hardware part.
A printer has a 3D model ready only to print the shape.
Printing is maybe not easy but making the 3D model is the real hard part.
It is not only the hardware the software is what it makes the 3D object.
I don't know any numbers but i will not be surprised if the price is more about the software side.
Then there are other factors like that they are limited on sales etc.
Not sure if this was posted here.
Not what you asked but not too different too ,kinda the same as j meyer posted above:
http://reconstructme.net/
http://store.makerbot.com/digitizer.html
http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/rubicon-3d-scanner
Hey guys.
No. those table top systems are too small and toyish. I really want a hand held with enough quality to do industrial work (precise parts reverse engineering) Like in the link in my last post. The problem is I cannot find a price for that, or anything similar. which leads me to believe its in the thousands of dollars. (I want a hand held because I want to use it for lots of things)
The software is easy to find, most of the hardware comes with software. The hardware is really the issue here. Im not looking for a hobby toy on this.
If I can get all my ducks in a row, I could make some money with this stuff. But I need the cheapest (yet best) solution to start with. The less I spend, the less it will hurt if I fail ;) But I guess thats the trick with everything.
A mill that can do what I need is really affordable, I just lack some info about some of the other stuff... I guess this 3D scanning stuff is still really new?
Quote from: TheBadger on September 14, 2013, 05:50:25 PM
.. I guess this 3D scanning stuff is still really new?
Guess that depends on your definition of 'new'. The first 3D scanning and 3D printing I saw was back in the mid-90's at a local business that manufactures power equipment. But it's only recently (maybe 5 years, but could be wrong on that) that it's become financially accessible to folks like us.
Your needs are different as it looks Michael.
I was more thinking along the Photogrammetry line.
This pdf is a little old but may give you some answers roughly about some scanners and prices :o
http://www.academia.edu/1757868/Experiences_with_low_and_high_cost_3D_surface_scanner
Quote from: Kadri on September 13, 2013, 09:15:55 AM
This came just to my mind: http://www.planetside.co.uk/forums/index.php/topic,16755.0.html
It was just a day or two earlier I had watched a longer video of a flyover of the city of Adelaide. I couldn't help but wonder how close the accuracy is to the real city of Adelaide. Did someone actually go out and model every building, street etc. and place them where they actual are in the model? 10GB sounds about like what it would take to do this. The shear size of the project it is mind-boggling.
Thanks Kadri, will take a look.
The 3D model of Adelaide has been generated from aerial photogrammetry. This is the same principle as 123D catch or AGI Soft but large scale. We didn't do any manual modeling.
We've just generated a 3D model of Melbourne CBD from more than 20 000 photographs.
Once it is fully processed, I will use TG3 to add all the atmospheric, lighting, bump mapping effects to it.
Can you say what software you use for these projects ?
What about the shiny surfaces, how do you handle those? That's an issue with some software. It sometimes looks as if there's no reflection on the windows, but you can see through them, though it's hard to see on this scale and speed. I guess if you photograph with a polarizing filter you'll get that effect.
And how about moving cars between photographs, will they blur out of view?
Quote from: Dune on September 17, 2013, 03:43:39 AM
What about the shiny surfaces, how do you handle those?
The movement is so fast in the animation that it doesn't hold still long enough to see such problems.
On another note, this is probably not the forum to ask this question but the AgiSoft application can produce an XML file that contains camera data. For each camera is listed the 4X4 transformation matrix of the camera. I am not sure how this matrix might be useful but I am wanting to derive each camera's [X,Y,Z] coordinates and orientation within the point cloud/model space. Does anyone know if and how this information can be extracted? Buying the Pro version of PhotoScan is not an option since it costs almost 20X that of the Standard version. I have an ongoing thread on the AgiSoft forum and I am getting some assistance. There are experts in there that give only some tidbits of information and expect me to have the understanding of a mathematician. I also have the first edition of a book on the subject but it is long on derivation and short on application (like mathematicians):
http://www.amazon.com/Mathematics-Programming-Computer-Graphics-Edition/dp/1584502770/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1379454629&sr=8-2&keywords=3D+mathematics+for+games
My plan is to write a program that can injest this file and compute the translation and rotational angles I need to align and scale the geometry to match the virtual space in my 3D packages.
In this video we just display the 3D model with basic textures using an home-made viewer based on OpenSceneGraph. To deal with the relfective surface we first need to identify these surface and create a reflextion map as input. TG is a great tool for that.
Regarding cars, it can be a problem if they move slowly and we often end up with half car in the 3D model that we need to remove. at normal speed, they are just not modeled.
I can't unfortunately give details on the processing but it is a mix of in-house, open-source and commercials photogrammetry softwares. The big trick is in the acquisition technique of the RAW data to produce the model.
Thanks, Aerometrex.
For those who are interested, I answered my own question late last night. The transformation matrices produced using Tools/"Export Cameras..." in PhotoScan transform points in the cameras' local space to the point cloud/model's common space. So when you multiply one of these by the augmented origin of the camera you get the camera's location in model common space which is still local space relative to the scene you will ultimately place your model into. Pretty cool stuff. Now I have to explore the vast unknown of how to align the geometry with my scene's absolute coordinate system and motion tracking software. I am sure that what needs to be done depends on what is needed in a particular project so there may be no general solution.
Aerometrex's application is one example of a model where UV mapping won't be adequate if you want to map the whole thing to one image. You'd have to use multiple images and multiple UV maps. Here's an application where something like PTEX shading might be more appropriate. However, the model is so huge that even PTEX might not work very well because all of the images have to fit into a single file. I would presume the geometry and shading would need to be stored in a database, pieces of which can be queried up (and locally cached) as the renderer needs them. I think this is what happens in geodetic visualization systems. This would be needed in a virtual fly-over along a path that only a virtual camera visits. But if you want to use a fly-over from the point of view of a real video taken in an aircraft from which the geometry might have been digitized in the first place, you can then project the camera's image onto the geometry and you won't need to shade the surface. The problem I see is that shadows are burned into the image when you collected it with your cameras. When you place a virtual sun light source to simulate the lighting that was present when the photography took place, you will get double deep shadows making them darker than they should really be. If you are not placing any CG objects in the scene then you will just want to illuminate the environment evenly and have no virtual shadows. But if you want shadows from virtual CG objects then the shadows in your digitized environment will be too deep. Perhaps the way to solve this problem is to selectively make the object not able to receive shadows from itself. But it still needs to receive shadows from all the virtual objects. I am pretty sure that Lightwave can do this but I don't know about TG.
Another problem altogether is the tainted images you get from video when your camera (wannabe a true video camcorder) has a CMOS rolling shutter sensor. Don't get rid of your true camcorder that has CCD sensors in them. DSLR's don't hold a candle to them when trying to collect geometry with lots of motion in them. You want the images you collect your geometry with to be in sharp focus as possible with no bokeh at all. You can add this effect in your virtual 3D renderer.
Sorry, just thinking to myself. You guys probably already know all this stuff.
Regarding the shadows it's best to shoot the images with dull, bland weather I suppose, no harsh sunlight. Then a virtual sun will work better.
Thanks for the answer Aerometrex.
Not much surprised that you can not say openly what kind of software you use.
Your website does stay clearly away from that .
Quote from: Dune on September 20, 2013, 02:40:04 AM
Regarding the shadows it's best to shoot the images with dull, bland weather I suppose, no harsh sunlight. Then a virtual sun will work better.
Agreed. Might have some blue-shift in color but that is easy to correct. Then replace the sky with Terragen!