Mini Mali

[bigben]

One last sample.  Reprocessed the images as seen in this cheesy video https://vimeo.com/66036184
This was originally done before we had any mesh editing tools so to get a good model we had to keep adding control points until it worked.  The model for this render was processed entirely in Photoscan. Textured objects like this work really well with photogrammetry.

[j meyer]

Yup,Meshmixer is a nice free app.I remember that many people were quite
exited about the mesh stitching back then.
ZB does your head in? That is something I really don't understand.I got my
copy right after I tried to learn blender for several months,which did terrible
things to my mind.Then I got ZB and learning that was like a therapy and
my mental health was restored almost immidiately.
No,ZB can't use exported cameras.

I can see this technique being of use to many scientists.
Good luck for getting paid for this.

Why do you need RAW images?

[bigben]

Why do you need RAW images?

JPEG compression artefacts and ISO noise are falsely interpreted as image detail so to get the best quality mesh you need the cleanest possible images. As low an ISO as practical and TIFFs from RAW images, but you can still get pretty good results with JPEGs


300k model of the first elephant: http://studio.verold.com/projects/538c4d646d602c02000003ed
Only got 2 of the set: http://www.zoo.org.au/150/mali-sculptures

[Kadri]

Looks good Ben.

[TheBadger]

Hey ben,

What kind of art/history/antiquities access do you have at your school? 

[bigben]

A lot more than I know about. I'm at Melbourne University, working here: http://digitisation.unimelb.edu.au. There are a number of cultural collections within the university and then there are departments like Archaeology that send researchers all over the world. I've just done a couple of samples for some guys off to Turkey this week and they're keen to make models of things they can't bring back.
Here's a brochure for our collections
http://www.unimelb.edu.au/culturalcollections/collections/melbunicollections.pdf

[TheBadger]

Gotta get in there!

[Kadri]

Ben i hope you don't mind it is something related that i thought could fit to your thread.

http://www.theastronauts.com/2014/03/visual-revolution-vanishing-ethan-carter/

[bigben]

Don't mind at all. It points out the inefficient textures that Photoscan creates. I'm still learning the workflow options, but as I don't have a lot of other 3D modelling software (or experience with them) I'm looking at simpler options. One nice thing with Photoscan is that you can export point clouds and models at various stages of the workflow, edit them and reimport them to continue the workflow. I think you can update the UV mapping in another application and then import it back in for the texture creation step.

[Kadri]

"export point clouds" Have you tried it and if yes with which software Ben?

[bigben]

For point clouds, I'm actually finding Photoscan to be pretty useful for selecting points easily.  The selection tools in many other apps freeze up once the point cloud gets really big.  For objects, Meshlab can be useful for creating a mesh from an exported point cloud.  Poisson surface reconstruction with parameters 11,9,X,1 where X (samples per node) is based on the desired face count for the mesh and the number of points in the point cloud. X = 2 x number of points / number of faces. I follow this up with a quadratic edge collapse decimation to reduce the face count, incorporating planar simplification.  Then import that mesh back into Photosan and do the texturing.

The other thing Meshlab is good for is editing meshes created with Photoscan. Arbitrary meshes have larger faces around some edges which often pick up texture from the distant background (e.g. sky). These can be selected in Meshalb by selecting faces by edge length (they get larger as they get closer to the edge). Alternatively, Meshmixer is handy in this instance in that you can easily select an edge and then grow the selection away from the edge.

[Kadri]

Thanks for the detailed answer Ben

[TheBadger]

01
CLASSICS AND ARCHAEOLOGY GALLERY IAN POTTER MUSEUM OF ART
Pre-classical to classical ceramics,
coins and manuscripts
Location Swanston Street, Parkville Campus Access Tuesday to Friday 10am to 5pm; Saturday and Sunday 12noon to 5pm
Contact email potter.info@unimelb.edu.au; telephone (03) 8344 5148; fax (03) 8349 3518 www.art-museum.unimelb.edu.au
The geographic focus of the Classics and Archaeology Collection is the ancient Mediterranean world and the adjoining regions of the Near East. Chronologically, the antiquities span several millennia and are testimony to many significant human achievements. Among these are representations of early writing systems, items of ancient maritime trade, artworks of the Near East and classical worlds, coins and illuminated manuscripts.

Sounds like they would have a statue or two of some gods? Athena and neptune? If you get into it, see if they have anything! If you need to keep working on this and you need subjects 

[bigben]

Don't even have to go inside 
http://sophieinmelbourne.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/ian-potter-museum-of-art.jpg

[TheBadger]

Oh man! Go inside go inside!