Agisoft Metashape

Agisoft Metashape => Feature Requests => Topic started by: Marcel on December 14, 2013, 10:53:14 PM

Title: Request: Dense Cloud Filtering
Post by: Marcel on December 14, 2013, 10:53:14 PM
We are struggling with building the mesh for projects with very big Dense Clouds (200 million points or more).

The problem is that the Build Mesh stage always builds the mesh using the entire point cloud. So even if we build a mesh with a 80 million polygon target, it will first build the mesh with the maximum amount of polygons (using all points in the cloud), and only decimate afterwards. This takes a lot of time and we often run out of memory, even with 128GB.

What would be a very good solution, is if we could optimize/decimate the Dense Cloud. For example, in MeshLab you can use "Poisson Disk Sampling", this function filters the point cloud and removes (unnecessary) points.

We would love to have such a function in Photoscan. This would save us a lot of time, and depending on the filtering algorithm it could result in a mesh that is the same quality as the unfiltered Dense Cloud.
Title: Re: Request: Dense Cloud Filtering
Post by: andyroo on December 17, 2013, 06:42:10 AM
+1 for dense point cloud filtering.

I could see different filters being useful for different applications.  It would be nice to have several options for filtering.

For example, I have been using LASTools (http://) and Point Cloud Library (http://pointclouds.org/) to either decimate (random or every nth point) or filter (statistical outlier removal, radius filter) the dense pointclouds before DSM production. But being able to do these operations before generating the mesh would be great!

Sometimes I have dreams where I am using a filter that allows me to write equations based on variables in the pointcloud, on individual points or within a radius. In those dreams I make beautiful rasters and solve all of my problems by doing things like conditional filtering based on RGB values, and filtering by intensity from the gamma-corrected RGB luminance. And filtering by precision values derived from the triangulation uncertainty..

wow. that would be amazing.
Title: Re: Request: Dense Cloud Filtering
Post by: dcm39 on February 20, 2014, 09:38:41 PM
+1 more for dense cloud filtering/decimating.

At present, if I want to use the point cloud I filter it with the GMT blockmean command. But it would be really useful to be able to do this before the meshing in the photoscan workflow.

Other programs also aren't really able to maintain the vertex colour  etc... again, would be useful!
Title: Re: Request: Dense Cloud Filtering
Post by: Marcel on February 21, 2014, 12:46:39 PM
Thanks for your +1.

I've been thinking about this the last few weeks, and the reason why I feel Dense Cloud Filtering is important is because currently we have no way to predict how many points the Dense Cloud phase creates. It takes 20+ hours to process, and only afterward you see if it has the right number of points. If it does not have enough points then we don't have the detail we need, if it has too many points then meshing it becomes really hard.

Some of our recent projects have Dense Clouds between 1 billion and 2 billion points. The amount of detail is amazing, but we really struggle to create meshes from these Clouds. We can split them up in several chunks, but this adds a lot of extra work.

Being able to reduce the number of points in the Dense Cloud would make it so much easier. If the reduction is done in a smart way (with only redundant points being removed) then this would improve quality  because we could always build the Dense Cloud at the maximum level without having to be afraid of un-meshable Clouds.







Title: Re: Request: Dense Cloud Filtering
Post by: Porly on February 22, 2014, 04:22:16 PM
+1 for dense cloud filtering and smoothing option for marked faces
Title: Re: Request: Dense Cloud Filtering
Post by: wojtek on March 04, 2014, 01:23:14 PM
+1 from me as well.

Are there any plans/developments in regards to this feature?
Title: Re: Request: Dense Cloud Filtering
Post by: taran on March 10, 2014, 06:42:35 PM
+1 from me - deeply useful for those working with huge datasets.
Title: Re: Request: Dense Cloud Filtering
Post by: Bruno Andrieu on March 21, 2014, 06:00:47 PM
+2 for me !!
Title: Re: Request: Dense Cloud Filtering
Post by: gregoconn on April 14, 2014, 09:26:26 AM
+1 for me. marcel explains the reasoning perfectly.

I've been thinking about this the last few weeks, and the reason why I feel Dense Cloud Filtering is important is because currently we have no way to predict how many points the Dense Cloud phase creates. It takes 20+ hours to process, and only afterward you see if it has the right number of points. If it does not have enough points then we don't have the detail we need, if it has too many points then meshing it becomes really hard.

Being able to reduce the number of points in the Dense Cloud would make it so much easier. If the reduction is done in a smart way (with only redundant points being removed) then this would improve quality  because we could always build the Dense Cloud at the maximum level without having to be afraid of un-meshable Clouds.








Title: Re: Request: Dense Cloud Filtering
Post by: MartinBim on April 14, 2014, 10:48:43 AM
+1 as marcel said
Title: Re: Request: Dense Cloud Filtering
Post by: 3DFranz on April 14, 2014, 11:06:27 AM
+1
Title: Re: Request: Dense Cloud Filtering
Post by: Mohammed on May 14, 2015, 09:52:00 PM
+++++1 great idea and i'll save our time alot.
Title: Re: Request: Dense Cloud Filtering
Post by: MHThomsen on July 08, 2015, 12:58:32 PM
+1 from me too. Much needed feature.
Title: Re: Request: Dense Cloud Filtering
Post by: YesOk on July 08, 2015, 09:46:10 PM
+1

No need to save point cloud color data if it is easier to filter.
Title: Re: Request: Dense Cloud Filtering
Post by: GeoGecco on July 27, 2015, 01:39:49 PM
+1 for me
Title: Re: Request: Dense Cloud Filtering
Post by: Ingsayyad on July 31, 2015, 12:07:37 PM
+1 for dense point cloud filtering.
Title: Re: Request: Dense Cloud Filtering
Post by: Darko on August 04, 2015, 07:26:55 AM
+1 for dense cloud filtering!!!
Title: Re: Request: Dense Cloud Filtering
Post by: Mfranquelo on September 02, 2015, 04:03:57 PM
+1 !! :)
Title: Re: Request: Dense Cloud Filtering
Post by: mrrafs on September 11, 2015, 07:43:13 PM
+1 i like the way Geoscan does this feature
Title: Re: Request: Dense Cloud Filtering
Post by: garynobles on October 02, 2015, 01:25:42 AM
Another +1

Struggling with 16GB RAM due to stupidly high point cloud, there are areas I need details and areas where I don't
I now have 200,256,361 points and trying to merge with another even bigger chunk which makes it run out of memory
Title: Re: Request: Dense Cloud Filtering
Post by: nadar on October 03, 2015, 11:29:05 AM
New function of mesh smooting is fine, but has a terrible impact on buildings (rounded corners). Is there a possibility to have a filter preserving planar surfaces ?
Title: Re: Request: Dense Cloud Filtering
Post by: AndyC on January 28, 2016, 08:38:49 PM
+1
Title: Re: Request: Dense Cloud Filtering
Post by: cbnewham on September 26, 2016, 12:46:34 AM
There needs to be a way to decimate the dense point cloud.

As it stands, I can easily generate point clouds of 50 million or more points from hundreds of photos, but the whole thing dies as soon as it attempts to generate a mesh. By "dies" I mean just that - it doesn't even exit gracefully. PhotoScan just disappears, having crashed.

My limit is about 45 million points. Currently there is no way to export the cloud, decimate it, and re-import it and I'm rather baffled that this is not even available, even if there is no built in decimation or filtering.
Title: Re: Request: Dense Cloud Filtering
Post by: gleitfrosch on February 08, 2017, 05:04:52 PM
Bump +1 need this so bad :(
Title: Re: Request: Dense Cloud Filtering
Post by: Thibaud Capra on February 17, 2017, 11:05:33 AM
+1, I have to use derivated ways to decimate / resample / mesh parts of cloud that fit my needs. I'd love to have a whole PhotoScan pipeline and be able to do everything I need from A to Z not having to switch between softwares!
Title: Re: Request: Dense Cloud Filtering
Post by: maddin on February 28, 2017, 04:37:06 PM
Just the other day, I was wondering why Gradual Selection is not available for dense points?
Title: Re: Request: Dense Cloud Filtering
Post by: cbnewham on September 02, 2017, 01:41:51 AM
Nearly 4 years since this thread was started. A year since I last commented. One of a few threads on this particular topic.

Come on Agisoft. Don't you ever read this forum? This doesn't appear to be very complex to implement and would make the whole application far easier to use. Either that or provide a proper sliding scale for photos rather than Ultra, High, Medium, etc.

Title: Re: Request: Dense Cloud Filtering
Post by: Yoann Courtois on September 06, 2017, 12:42:35 PM
Hi cbnewham !
Everybody is asking for that kind of tool, and me too...
But when you look at other softwares, which are specialized in point cloud processing, decimating tool is never instantaneous, which means it's not an easy process.
No answer for Agisoft doesn't mean they didn't read it by the way.
The used sliding scale corresponds to picture downscale which is the only thing that can be control. What else would you have ? Any other sliding scale would include a decimating step (the same we have for meshing), and for the moment there is not.

Come on Agisoft. Don't you ever read this forum? This doesn't appear to be very complex to implement and would make the whole application far easier to use. Either that or provide a proper sliding scale for photos rather than Ultra, High, Medium, etc.

For maddin, to my mind gradual selection tools are based on image data, because sparse cloud is composed of points linked with pictures. Whereas in dense cloud, points are independent from pictures after its generation. So none process can be based on gradual selection functioning.

Just the other day, I was wondering why Gradual Selection is not available for dense points?

Regards