Messages

286

General / Re: how to creat Scale Bar

« on: October 08, 2014, 09:15:22 PM »

Hi DCK,

the link to the tutorial is working now again! (or see here: http://www.agisoft.com/pdf/PS_1.0.0_Tutorial%20%28IL%29%20-%20Coded%20Targes%20and%20Scale%20Bars.pdf.
In the screenshots of the tutorial you can see, that only the first step Aligning is necessary, then you can set markers in your images on your scale bar/s and give your project a scale (only in the Pro version off course).

Karsten

287

General / Re: See Agisoft at Intergeo 2014 Berlin

« on: October 07, 2014, 09:10:54 AM »

Thank You to the Agisoft team!

288

General / See Agisoft at Intergeo 2014 Berlin

« on: October 06, 2014, 12:00:08 AM »

For those not aware off, you can see Agisoft at Intergeo Conference october 7th to 9th in Berlin. You can find Agisoft in hall 4.1 stand B4.001.

Karsten

289

General / Re: Simple studio set up for scanning old tools like hammers and chisels

« on: October 03, 2014, 03:46:35 PM »

At first, these are objects that should work very well. 

Some hints for the beginning:
The object should fill your photo as much as possible.
You haven't to shot the hole object in every photo.
The photo quality should be as high as possible with good lighting. ( remember "trash in - trash out")
Lift your object a little bit above the ground/table so you can separate it later from the ground more easily.
You can put a good textured thing under your object (for example a newspaper or a cork plate) to help the aligning process (later it can be erased or masked out).

You could find further help for example in the just discussed topic
http://www.agisoft.com/forum/index.php?topic=2909.0 there is also a link to a very detailed tutorial, in the manual (I know, how reads manuals?  ), other tutorials or search the forum.

Hope it helps a little bit to start.

Karsten

290

General / Re: how to creat Scale Bar

« on: October 03, 2014, 01:21:42 AM »

I have found atleast the text from the tutorial in google webcache (without screenshots), perhaps this could help you in between:

... How to Set Up Reference Distance
...
To create a scale bar consequently left-click on the markers in the Model view (with any
selection tool active, while holding the Ctrl key), that correspond to the scale bar ends.
Then right-click in the model view or on the pair of selected markers in the Workspace
pane to open the context menu and select Create Scale Bar option. Repeat for every pair of
markers with know distance between them.

Go to the Ground Control pane and inset the distance for every scale bar the distance is
known for:

Check all the scale bars you want to use for model scaling and press
Update button.
The scale will be applied to the model.
To apply correct model orientation in space use
Rotate Object tool.

Karsten

291

General / Re: New 4D scanning method...

« on: September 29, 2014, 03:29:27 PM »

So it's just an illusion trick, thank you for clarification Lee .

Karsten

292

Feature Requests / easy support for pattern projection workflow

« on: September 28, 2014, 02:26:25 PM »

For smooth surfaces with little or none structure or texture, pattern projection would be a big improvement for Photoscan. A simplyfied workflow for reordering and renaming would be really helpful.

Because it surely isn't an easy task to group the images automatically, some simple ideas come to my mind to help Photoscan:

- the image content for an image with and without a projected pattern are significantly different and the grouping by image content is surely difficult. But this one with the lower feature count should be the image without pattern projected and this one with the higher feature count this one with projected pattern.

- When grouping by image content isn't possible (or is it?), what about using the time stamp, because images with and without pattern projection should be taken nearly at the same time. Could this be used to group images? Sometimes there are probably mistakes by the photographer, so that not every time exactly two images belong together and interaction by the user is necessary.

Thank you and regards

Karsten

293

General / Re: Who know CHDK Please Help me!!

« on: September 28, 2014, 11:28:32 AM »

Hi charles14,

fine, your cameras are supported. Now you need the right chdk file for your camera firmware version. There is a tool to get your firmware version from an image you have taken.
A better place for CHDK issues is the friendly english CHDK forum see: http://chdk.setepontos.com/ or look at a forum in your native language.

Karsten

294

Feature Requests / separate pre-release installation

« on: September 28, 2014, 11:09:49 AM »

Separate installation of a pre-release version that one can try this pre-release and use the normal stable version for the daily work.

(With a little work it is possible also with the actual version, see here:http://www.agisoft.ru/forum/index.php?topic=2883.45, but could be simpler when it would be installed for example in a pre_release folder  )

Karsten

295

General / Re: Using physical markers in "background" to improve alignment

« on: September 28, 2014, 10:52:40 AM »

Camera alignment looks great, however. :/   

I think it is simply that the smooth white surface is not easily modeled.

I think so too. As mentioned earlier, to overcome such surfaces you can use pattern projection which works very well, unfortunately this is not fully supported with the actual version of PhotoScan and you have to reorder and rename images by yourself. It's time to make a feature request? Also the photo process is more difficult, search the forum for related discussions/ topics.

Karsten

296

General / Re: Agisoft PhotoScan 1.1.0 pre-release

« on: September 28, 2014, 01:31:12 AM »

Bisenberger: Can this version be installed alongside version 1.0.4, or does it overwrite it?

Yes you can, I have learnt this by Admir and I have just done it:

1. Copy your stable version folder "Photoscan" and rename it for example to "Photoscan_stable"
2. Deinstall Photoscan
3. Create a link to photoscan in the copied folder "Photoscan_stable"
4. Install pre-release

Now you have both versions parallel installed, you can try pre-release version and work with the stable version.


Karsten

297

General / Re: Using physical markers in "background" to improve alignment

« on: September 27, 2014, 04:10:19 PM »

One thing that's missing here is the suggestion of a handheld laser scanner. I work at a large institution and my job is to create workflows for various imaging applications as well. Time how long it takes to capture and process the images for one skull. Multiply that by the size of your collection and calculate the cost in wages for staff to complete this. Then compare that to the time it would take to complete the project with a high quality laser scanner.

Oh we are way of topic here.   
A laserscanner is indeed acurate and fast, but I think you don't get high quality texture from it. A TOF (time of flight) laserscanner has additional the advantage that it could better scan difficult parts (for example holes) of your object because it don't need a stereo base.
Another option is a structure light scanner, but same problem with texture and not so good with diffcult parts ( because it works with light section/cut).

Back to Photoscan:
I think fastest solution would be:
- turntable/ "sandbox turntable" with coded targets

Your problems with alignment could also come from focusing problems, therefore I would recommend:
- a assisting light for focusing, like a assisting light from a flash light do.
- a tethered solution, focusing in live view (more acurate!) and using the loupe to control the focus on the computer.

Karsten

298

General / Re: Who know CHDK Please Help me!!

« on: September 27, 2014, 01:36:59 PM »

First question is: Do you have a supported camera?
Start here: http://chdk.wikia.com/wiki/CHDK

299

General / Re: Using physical markers in "background" to improve alignment

« on: September 26, 2014, 12:40:49 PM »

Rather than manually masking the newspaper or marker in each picture, try generating a model of each chunk (at least to the "mesh" stage), then just select the newspaper in the mesh and delete it from the model.
Afterwards to go Tools -> Import -> Import Masks, and choose "from model" in order to mask the newspaper in all the pictures from that chunk.

Or even simpler take a photo before you insert your object in the background and generate the masks from this backgroundphoto.

Karsten

300

General / Re: Using physical markers in "background" to improve alignment

« on: September 26, 2014, 11:57:21 AM »

VCD, glad you like the article.

To my understanding there are in general two alignment techniques:

A) with only use of the object
B) with the help of the background

to A) You can improve the alignment when you only use the object:

- when you improve lighting for better viewing of the texture/surface structure
- using a higher resolution camera (but 12 MP shouldn'd that bad)
- take closer photographs, but then you get also problems with a smaler DOF, which you can avoid with using a crop camera instead of fullframe or even a good point and shot camera (or even a smartphone as suggested by ThomasVD), a shorter lens, masking out unsharp areas.
- you can also use pattern projection for unstructured/textureless objects, but this is a bit tedious in PhotoScan and no normal workflow.


to B) You can help PhotoScan with the alignment with a background technique for difficult objects where you can't use alone the object itselves. Additional to the suggestion for A:

- a good textured background with a constant relation to your object (for example newspaper, cork, ...)
- textured rings under and above your (vertical, cylindrical) object (bones)
- coded targets around your object
- marker based alignment for aligning separate scans
- use of the "sandbox technique" where you turn your object and your background together (discribed in the "Practicle Guide")

Karsten