Mesh from Depth Maps problems (v1.5.2)

[BjFaeTorphins]

I've been having problems getting any decent  models since upgrading to MetaShape v1.5.1 and v1.5.2.  Its all underwater models that I do and the images are very poor quality so i assumed that i'd just had a run of really bad image acquisition.

However I went back to a model i did with v1.35 to compare results and it turns out that the Mesh from Depth Maps produces very much worse results.

See the attached images.

v1.3.5 was produced via a DPC.  I was pretty happy with this result as the visibility was less than 4m with lots of matter in the water and out popped this excellent model.

v1.5.1 was produced using the Depth Maps method using v1.5.1

v1.5.2 also was produced with the Depth Maps method but using v1.5.2.  When the "black veil" is manually removed (which is a very time consuming task and never completely successful) the model looks very like image v1.5.1.

Tweaks..
Max Neighbors 60
depth_build_lod false
optimization true

[Mak11]

 BjFaeTorphins,

Which quality setting did you use (High, Ultra High?).

Depth Maps method is often lacking if the photos IQ isn't pitch perfect while the older dense cloud method manages to get more out of bad quality images from my experience. I can confirm that the depth maps workflow in 1.5.2 is totally messed up compared to 1.5.1 though. I already submitted a support ticket to the team 3 weeks ago and hope that things are being worked on.

Mak

[BjFaeTorphins]

BjFaeTorphins,

Which quality setting did you use (High, Ultra High?).

Depth Maps method is often lacking if the photos IQ isn't pitch perfect while the older dense cloud method manages to get more out of bad quality images from my experience. I can confirm that the depth maps workflow in 1.5.2 is totally messed up compared to 1.5.1 though. I already submitted a support ticket to the team 3 weeks ago and hope that things are being worked on.

Mak

Medium.  It's 5,800 cameras and took 2 days 13 hours to do the mesh

[Alexey Pasumansky]

Hello BjFaeTorphins,

Depth lod should be considered properly in the version 1.5.2 for the mesh generation.

When you say about max_neighbors tweak, do you mean depth_max_neighbors or dense_cloud_max_neighbors?

Also can you send the PDF reports from the projects generated in 1.3 and 1.5.2 version to support@agisoft.com?

[Mak11]

Hello BjFaeTorphins,

Depth lod should be considered properly in the version 1.5.2 for the mesh generation.

Alexey,

As discussed in our latest exchange on this matter, the Depth Lod tweak (whether it's set to True or False) doesn't fix the issue at all in 15.2. The resulting meshes in 15.2 are simply bad compared to 15.1/15.0.

Regards

Mak

[BjFaeTorphins]

Hello BjFaeTorphins,

Depth lod should be considered properly in the version 1.5.2 for the mesh generation.

When you say about max_neighbors tweak, do you mean depth_max_neighbors or dense_cloud_max_neighbors?

Also can you send the PDF reports from the projects generated in 1.3 and 1.5.2 version to support@agisoft.com?

dense_cloud_max_neighbors

How do I consider "Depth lod properly in the version 1.5.2 for the mesh generation. "?

I'd generated the reports and email to support as requested.

[Alexey Pasumansky]

Hello BjFaeTorphins,
 
You can switch depth_build_lod tweak to True status in the version 1.5.2 (depth maps should be rebuilt, if you want to see the effect).

Also can you please confirm that for the meshing process in the problematic project you have input Custom Face count and haven't used one of the available pre-sets (High/Medium/Low)?

[BjFaeTorphins]

Hello BjFaeTorphins,
 
You can switch depth_build_lod tweak to True status in the version 1.5.2 (depth maps should be rebuilt, if you want to see the effect).

Also can you please confirm that for the meshing process in the problematic project you have input Custom Face count and haven't used one of the available pre-sets (High/Medium/Low)?

It looks like I've set it to 1,000,000 faces rather than one of the pre-sets.  What difference will this make?

Can you tell me what depth_build_lod does rather than wait 2 days 13 hours to get another bad model?

[Alexey Pasumansky]

Hello BjFaeTorphins,

The behavior of the mesh decimation is different in version 1.5.2 for custom face count (if it is rather low) and suggested pre-sets.

We are going to fix it in the next version update. But currently if custom face count is quite low, then the artifacts like you are observing might be observed.

Depth LOD generates and keeps the depth maps for different levels and utilize them during mesh and dense cloud generation to get more information from the source images and improve the details.