Miscellaneous questions

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  • DanielMuirhead
    3Dfollower
    • Aug 2019
    • 12

    Miscellaneous questions

    Hi 3DF!

    Thank you for running the World Cup last year, I placed second and you gifted a 12 months license for Aerial. Since then I have loved learning how to use the software. Right now I am working on a 35,000 photo project, a ground-based scan of the urban centre of Scotland's 4th largest city, Dundee. Here are some of the pieces of the model - https://sketchfab.com/DanielMuirhead...centre-2020-q1 - and here is a low res flythrough of the area as a 600M point cloud ('default' quality dense, final render will be 'ultra' quality at 1 billion points) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dUGoyFyBvGQ. I am going to email you soon to discuss that project.

    Until then, here are a few questions. As a side note, I do not use a unified cache, but I experimented with both unified vs. non-unified cache and the results seemed to be the same (although of course I may be wrong and just have the software set up wrong). Generally, my questions can be summarised as: is there a way of saving Sparse and Dense calculations, per input, across projects:
    1. Sparse stage, image analysis (calculation of 'descriptors', 'keypoints' etc.), is there a way to retain input information across projects rather than having to calculate them fresh each time? E.g. if I use 100 inputs in a file, descriptors/keypoints are calculated, but then if I use 50 of those same inputs in the next project, Zephyr seems to calculate descriptors/keypoints again, rather than consulting previous results.
    2. Follow on from previous question, is there a way to batch process inputs for the Sparse stage, independent of their use in a project? E.g. if I have 5000 inputs, and I want to prepare them for use in the Sparse stage, but I only want to perform image analysis and do not want (yet) to perform image matching, is there a way to perform image analysis (descriptors/keypoints), save that result, then later on at different time, call those image analysis results back up and use them for image matching?
    3. Dense stage, similar question as 1. but regarding depth maps per input (apologies if the term is not 'depth map' but something else, I possibly have name wrong!): is there a way of retaining depth map information across projects? E.g. I have a 1000 input project, fully processed (Sparse>Dense>Mesh), I want to use 500 of those inputs in a new 1000 input project (500 from old project, 500 new), is there a way of using the previous project's depth map results, so I do not have to calculate them again? I appreciate the answer already might be no, it depth maps are calculated per project (i.e. if depth map calculation for one input depends on neighbour inputs, so has to be re-calculated every time new inputs are in mix).
    Thanks in advance!

    Also, 1 more question, not related to the above, but instead to do with the camera used by Zephyr for the animated flythroughs. I thought best to ask here before I submit feature request, in case the software has feature that I am ignorant of:

    4. Is it possible to import/export the trajectory for the Animator camera? E.g., I have 35,000 input file, 1 billion points (High Quality file), but I also have a heavily decimated version of same file, 50 million points (Low Quality file). I am plotting and setting Animator camera trajectory (sequence of: camera position, x-y-z, and orientation, yaw-pitch-roll) in that Low Quality file, e.g. like in video shared above. Then, when satisfied with flythrough, I will program same Animator camera trajectory in High Quality file. Is there a way to import/export Animator camera trajectory between files? Relatedly, I have the same world space, and exported models (meshes, decimated and textured) for that whole area, in a Blender file. I am coordinating a parallel flythrough in the Zephyr Low Quality, Zephyr High Quality, and Blender (later on, adding VFX in Blender or even the Unreal Engine 4). Is there a way of importing/exporting the Animator camera path, e.g. even as CSV or TXT?

    Thanks!
  • Andrea Alessi
    3Dflow Staff
    • Oct 2013
    • 1304

    #2
    Hi Daniel,

    welcome to the forum!

    unfortunately there is currently no way to partially process each step. So if you start sfm/dense/whatever, you won't be able to pick which substage process and which don't. Note that all these steps are dependent on the settings, so even the slitghtest change would require reprocessing anyways.

    unfortunately there is no way to import/export the camera animator path - it is a good idea though, feel free to add this (and others!) feedback in the feature request forum, we keep track of user requested features there

    Comment

    • DanielMuirhead
      3Dfollower
      • Aug 2019
      • 12

      #3
      Hi Andrea,

      Thank you for the welcome! And thank you for answering the questions.

      I will submit the camera animator path feedback in the feature request forum in due course.

      Comment

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