Making a 3D Model From a Photosynth
- Posted: Feb 23, 2010 at 8:45 AM
- 34,047 Views
- 3 Comments
There's an
interesting video on YouTube from
Binary Millenium showing how to make a 3D model out of real objects using Microsoft's
Photosynth. It's an interesting idea that, while
unofficial, may be a big time saver and a lot of fun for many of you.
This will work best if you use a Photosynth that not only has a high rate of 'synthiness' but also lots of points in the point cloud. A point in the point cloud means that a specific feature has been identified in two or more photos, allowing for Photosynth to determine to some degree where in space that point exists. While a good Photosynth might have 100% synthiness, meaning all the pictures are connected, it doesn't necessarily mean there will be lots of points in the point cloud.
This will work best if you use a Photosynth that not only has a high rate of 'synthiness' but also lots of points in the point cloud. A point in the point cloud means that a specific feature has been identified in two or more photos, allowing for Photosynth to determine to some degree where in space that point exists. While a good Photosynth might have 100% synthiness, meaning all the pictures are connected, it doesn't necessarily mean there will be lots of points in the point cloud.
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Larry, I hope you don't mind if I jump in here but I've been following this since Blaise linked the Photosynth community at Get Satisfaction to Binary Millenium's first point cloud post.
Binary Millenium (Blogspot, Vimeo, Photosynth) was definitely the first Photosynth user to figure the point cloud format out and write about how to use his Python script to export point clouds to CSV. He also tried his hand at the same process using Noah Snavely's Bundler from the original Photo Tourism project, but there have been a few advancements in the export process in the past year and a half.
Craig Dunn tried his hand at converting BM's python script to C#.
We saw the BIN to PLY webservice, seen in the video referenced above, launched, and later ported to Java, although collecting the individual point cloud files was still something of a manual task.
Most notably, there is now a simple export app up on CodePlex written by Christoph Hausner (Codeplex, Photosynth). Using it, you simply provide a Photosynth's URL and it will export the point cloud (or point clouds in the case of less synthy synths) to PLY (ASCII), PLY (Binary), VRML, or X3D formats. You can then load it in the 3D modeling program of your choice to view it, or convert it to a mesh.
Of the people that I've seen publish meshes created from point clouds, you definitely hit the nail on the head, finding Mark Willis (YouTube, Photosynth). His newer videos demonstrate using point clouds to generate a mesh to digitally highlight petroglyphs and digital elevation maps. He's also written up a list of his workflow on the Photosynth forums if you've never converted a point cloud to a mesh before.
Nathan Craig, who initially pointed me to Christoph's exporter, has written up a guide on converting: Structure from Motion Point Clouds to Real World Coordinates
Although it was written before Christoph's new exporter, this is also relevant to read:
Utilization of Photosynth Point Clouds for 3D Object Reconstruction
Hmm, interesting.
So could one potentially collect Bing Maps (Competitor's Maps) imagery and build topographic 3d maps?
Very interesting...
Thanks for the knowledge transfer, Nate.
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