Photosynth to CSV to SketchUp - Now What?
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As I'm sure you know by now, Photosynth* is awesome.
Wouldn't it be cool if you could grab the point cloud? Well, it turns out you can. There's this tutorial:
http://binarymillenium.com/2008/08/photosynth-export-process-tutorial.html
But be warned, it isn't for the faint of heart.Now, I've done it with a synth**, so I have this huge csv point cloud (actually, 25 files each with 5000 points a piece). I can bring those into SketchUp (thanks Didier!), and its pretty cool, but kind of useless. What do I do with the points, now?
It would be nice if I could triangulate the points. But the scripts I'm aware of can't do it. A script could potentially be written, but it would be way beyond my abilities.
I suspect that SketchUp isn't the tool to use. Does anybody have any alternate suggestions? Free or cheap would be particularly awesome.
Thanks,
--Matt
*http://photosynth.net/
**http://photosynth.net/view.aspx?cid=b28f5583-d1b5-45fe-8dee-96f8f3af043c
p.s. I've tried meshlab, to view the points, but I won't turn them into a mesh as far as I can tell. If you've had success, let me know your secrets.
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It's hard to imagine how a script could calculate which points would be triangulated as it would be almost impossible to infer where the "surface" ought to be. The only method I could imagine would rely on relative proximity, but as soon as a a point from one surface comes too close to a point from another surface the "proximity engine" would stupidly triangulate the two. It's a bit like astronomical constellations- it's only after someone says "It's a bear".... and then draws it out for you that you actually see where the outline is supposed to be (What were the ancient Greeks drinking?).
Cool model BTW!
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I could swear didier had written a triangulation script, i cant for the life of me remember what it was called, though. racks brain
edit: here we go http://www.crai.archi.fr/RubyLibraryDepot/Ruby/EM/points_cloud_triangulation.rb
youll need this as well: http://www.crai.archi.fr/RubyLibraryDepot/Ruby/delauney2.rb
And heres how it works: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delaunay_triangulation
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Terrain Reshaper
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@ Jackson,
Yeah, I like the model too, but it isn't mine. I wanted something that was good and synthy, so I borrowed somebody else's.I had some ideas for approaching this too, but they started to sound outlandish: If you could get the original photo-aligned and pick out which points came from that particular photo, you could then project a surface from the camera to the points. Do that with all the cameras, intersect and clean up the meshes, and just a bit of hand waving, and you're there. Unfortunately, this relies on a bunch of information that I don't know if I can get, and it WAY beyond my understanding of math or programming. I'm sure somebody smarter than me has already gotten closer to a solution than I could. Somebody like
@ Remus,
I'm sure there's something wrong with my data, but when I run this on the model, it will only connect a few of the points. It does pretty well on the terrain, but the backhoe itself is a mess if it connects any points at all. If I pick and choose the points it does a better job, but still not great. Do you have any tricks for selecting the right points? Does re-aligning the axis ever help?@ Edson,
Looks like an interesting plugin, but I think it requires a mesh to exist. Once I have a mesh, I'll try this out.Thanks for your suggestions! Keep them coming.
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Sorry but i cant really help beyond directing you to the plugins, i've never had to use it before so not really in with the nuances.
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Meshlab do have a Point Clouds support now.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9-sjaUjrTnw -
Illustration of Didier's plugin on pushpullbar
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