Processing Big Amount of UAV Data

[boulder1998]

Dear community,

I am currently working on a project where I use UAV pictures (10 to 15 MB per picture) to gain DEM models of rivers. The goal would be to process about 300 - 500 pictures.
My python code using the workflow (matchPhotos, alignCameras, buildDepthMaps, buildModel)  that I've written struggles when using chunk.matchPhotos when I use about 100 photos. When I use less photos (about 50) it will struggle at the step chunk.buildModel. With struggle I mean that the processing will stop and in my case Visual Studio Code freezes/crashes.
Using over 150 photos will lead to a RuntimeError: too many open files.

I am working with a MacBook Air (Memory 16GB, Apple M2 chip) and with the 1.82 Visual Studio Code version using Python 3.10.9. Not sure if it is a VSC or Metashape problem.

Any ideas how I can fix this and especially how it will be possible to create the 3D models/DEMS with many more pictures?

Thank you!

Cheers boulder1998

[Alexey Pasumansky]

Hello boulder1998,

What version of Metashape you are using (is it application or stand-alone Python module?) and what is the OS version?

Does it make any difference in the behavior, if you save the project in PSX format before adding images and starting the image matching?

Also please specify, if the images and project files are stored on local, external or network drive, as the problem may be related to the data storage limitations.


I cannot recall any recent similar reports and a few hundreds of images is not that big amount of data for the processing, so most likely it is hardware or OS limitation.

[boulder1998]

Dear Alexey

Thank you for your answer.
The problem has been solved.

To complete this topic:
I was running Python on VSC and that on a MacBook Air M2, 2022 with Ventura 13.5.2.
I add the pictures to a chunk in a separate function after opening a psx file and then the match photos part comes in.
Pictures were stored on a local drive.

The issue was that I used progress=progress_print  function that I learnt of in the Post: Topic: Progress Callback function/Progress Bar? (https://www.agisoft.com/forum/index.php?topic=15676.msg67875#msg67875)
This seems to work on my computer for a view pictures but my laptop cannot handle more than 60 pictures when having this running as well.
I got rid of this progress information and now it seems to work as I want also with more pictures.

Cheers, boulder1998