Any tips for 360 photos for photogrammetry?

[bcoyle]

I recently picked up an Insta360 One X - and through some searching of the forum realized that equirectangular photos CAN be loaded into Metashape for processing a point cloud?? Yay!

But I can't find Spherical as an option. "switch the Camera Type from Frame (default) to Spherical"

[bcoyle]

I see now that it's only in the professional version's documentation that this is possible. Despite the features section of the website saying otherwise both Pro & Standard support it. The website mentions that Standard can do - Auto calibration: frame (incl. fisheye), spherical & cylindrical cameras.

hmm...

[Kiesel]

Hello bcoyle,

I don't know if you could get double fisheyes with the Insta360 One X? If yes, then you can try to split them in "normal" fisheyes and process these in standard version.

There is also the possibility to sort two fisheyes (from one shot) as a camera group and then set group type to station, to tell Megashape/Photoscan that both shots are made from same position.

But generally the resolution and sensors of these 360 cameras are very limited. I only use them in very tight spaces, where I can't use normal cameras. You can also have a look in support section, where you will find some papers.

Hope it helps

Kiesel

[bcoyle]

Thanks for the reply. Doesn't look like the Insta360 has the raw double fisheye images available. Their raw files are proprietary file formats, and once processed with the iOS or the desktop app they're already equirectalinear images. I know the quality might be subpar, but I find the ease of use interesting for some use cases where I don't want to have my dslr/fisheye/tripod + time. There's also the worry of not coverage when shooting with the fisheye. The 360 pictures or even video would be appealing with a quick walk through of a new space and getting a rough capture for dimensions or review in VR. Oh well.

This is mostly a hobby and experiments for me. I wanted to see if I could do it with Photoscan before I looked at some of these other services that do similar things.

[Kiesel]

Isn't there a DNG RAW mode in Insta360 OneX?

Another, not so good way, because of stitching and lens errors, is to split equirectangular into six normal rectangular cube photos and process them as camera group/station.