Photogrammetry

[kenmo]

During Christmas I downloaded the15 day trial of 3DF Zephyr and liked it very much. I also have over 100 diecast and scale model cars in scales of 1/24, 1/25 & 1/18. I am a car nut and in 1983 restored a 1960 Corvette with the assistance of my Dad & brother. I still own the 1960 Corvette. I am also a hobbyist photographer own 5 Nikon DSLRs and two Olympus DSLRs. In the summer I enjoy taking photos at the local car shows and cruise-ins. Also scenery photos in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and the fine state of Maine in the USA.

With photogrammetry I get to combine three of my passions -  digital arts, photography and cars.

I grabbed a 1/24th diecast model of a 1954 Chevy and placed it onto a lazy susan I snatched off of our kitchen table and proceed to take close to 200 photos with my Nikon D7000 and 50mm 1.8 prime lens. Brought the RAW photos into Adobe Lightroom and adjusted the highlights and shadows, exposure. I shot at a low ISO of 100 so there was no need for noise reduction

Sadly I did not get the results I wanted with3DF Zephyr, so I tried Reality Capture but I found the interface quite confusing and much preferred Zephyrs interface and ease of use. As well I thought Zephyr had better masking tools. I bought some credits to download my models for Reality Capture. I much preferred the output from Reality Capture as the photos seemed better aligned and 3D model was less noisy.

I also stumbled upon Agisoft Metashape Standard's 30 day trial. And this product I really love. And found with it's refine mess and smoothing filters I got a model that was acceptable to me.

I used 3DC sculpt room to refine it a bit more and then did a retopo via 3DC's Instant Mesh option.

 

[kenmo]

My Nikon D7000 was placed onto a sturdy tripod and I took two series of photos. One series of photos at a low angle and a second at a higher angle. All show in RAW format.

[kenmo]

RAW scan brought imported into Blender 3.0 to get a better look at.

[kenmo]

I find one of the most difficult things in photogrammetry is getting the proper lighting. I have no photographer's diffuse  tent or umbrella so made do with the regular lighting in my computer room. The car had lots of reflections on the shiny paint, chrome plated parts and the windows. I did try a polarizing filter. And it helped somewhat.

I am but a novice so if anyone has any recommendations on taking better photos for shiny objects, I'm all ears. However I do know about powder sprays but I am very reluctant to use these as over the 55 years plus I've been building and collecting car models I have damaged many trying to remove dust.

So please do not recommend dust spray or similar products. Also I would like to shoot a photo of my own 60 Corvette and cars at local car shows. I know for a fact none of the classic car owners I know would approve of putting dust onto their prized autos.

 

[kenmo]

I brought the retop model into Blender to peek at. I retopo'd vis 3DC-instant Meshes with a target to 40,000  faces but ended up with 79,000 faces. I also used 3DC to uv map the retopo mesh. When I brought the retopo mesh into Metascape create the diffuse map, Metashape converted the quads to triangles upon export. If you look closely at the screen capture you will see Metashape put a diagonal line through all the quads, cutting the quads into two tris. Anyone know of a fix for this issue?

Edited February 16, 2022 by kenmo

[kenmo]

Still working on the 54 Chevy scan but I thought I would attempt a couple of old Christmas nicnacs my late Mom had collected over the years.

I scanned this via my Nikon D7000 with 50mm lens and Reality Capture.

[kenmo]

I am debating on whether to purchase Metashape Standard or 3DF Zephyr Lite. I will also have access to RealityCapture's free version but have to pay per download of model.

Anyone have a preference for any of these photogrammetry apps?

[Carlosan]

I tested at work Zephyr, was very bugged but was not latest version.
Reality Capture its a standard
You can also try Meshroom, its free and give good results

https://alicevision.org/

[kenmo]

My 15 day demo of 3DF Zephyr 6.5 ran out yesterday. However I was having so much fun and really impressed with the support of their staff I decided to purchase it. Loving it so far...

I did try Agisoft Metashape, Meshroom and Reality Capture. Meshroom was too slow and Reality Capture does not work well with turntable captures which I am using since I am shooting minatures and models and a stationary camera on a tripod. Metashape and Zephyr worked the best for me. Zephyr has an easier masking function and is a tad cheaper.

 

Edited March 23, 2022 by kenmo

[kenmo]

Another one of my late Mother's Christmas miniatures of a village gazebo with figures.

[kenmo]

[kenmo]

Santa Clause - created using my Nikon D7000, Nikkor 35mm 1.8 lens, tripod, 132 raw photos converted to JPG using Lightroom and rendered using 3DF Zephyr 6.5

[kenmo]

I was a little bored last week, so I went to the local dollar store to see if they had anything interesting.

I purchased a Buddha head lawn ornament and thought it would be a good candidate for photogammetry.

I snapped 73 photos in the RAW format using my old but very trusty Nikon D7000 and Nikkor 35mm 1.8 prime lens. I love this D7000 so much I purchased a second one. I find little difference between my D7000s and my D7100 or D5200 other than the D7000 captures a RAW in 16meg and the D7100 & D5200 are 24megs.

I feed the 73 photos into 3DF Zephyr and got this...

 

[kenmo]

Brought the raw scan into 3DC and did an autoretop and auto uv unwrapping on the lowpoly retopo.  

I then baked the raw scan and the retopo low poly mesh.

[kenmo]

Brought the low poly into Vue Creator 1.6 and applied a procedural material and the normal, metalness and roughness maps.

[kenmo]

And a quick render in Vue.

[kenmo]

PS: I did not use the Instant Meshes option when I retopo'd in 3DC 2022. I used 3DC native autoretop and was very impressed with the results.

[kenmo]

A candle holder my late Mom owns. I thought it would be neat to 3D scan via my Nikon D7000 & Nikkor 35mm 1.8 prime lens and 3DF Zephyr.

The scanned mesh inside of Zephyr.

 

 

[kenmo]

Retopo'd and scan mesh baked onto retopo object displayed within Blender 3.1

[kenmo]

DAZ Studio 4.20 - wireframe view, with IRAY enabled and a quick IRAY render

[kenmo]

Using a dollar store dinosaur toy, my Nikon D7000 and Nikkor 35 mm prime lens, tripod and Zephyr Lite 6.5.

From the 60 photos in total, I Zephyr created this raw mesh.

 

[kenmo]

The raw mesh was brought into 3DC 2022 where I fixed issues (holes, surplus ******) with the raw scan in the sculpt room, I then did an auto retopo. The retopo was given an auto UV mapping and baked the details from the sculpt (cleaned up raw model) with textures onto the retopo.

The retopo was brough into the paint room and resolved some issues with the textures.

[kenmo]

Retopo mesh in 3DC 2022 and raw mesh in Zephyr Lite 6.5