What is the difference between Tiled model and Split in Blocks?

[Mariusz_M]

Recently a new option was added to split models in blocks. There is not much about it in the manual. What would be the use of it and how much does it differ from building a tiled model?

[Paulo]

+1 for this explanation!

[steve3d]

Tiled Model => You can not edit anything with this model, the only thing you can do is create some boundary and export it to different tiles format like cesium osgb, but not any 3d file format like obj/fbx.
Blocked Model => Much more efficient than normal model, especially when you create a large model like city or part of it. and you can edit polygon, de-light, and export any kind of model like obj/fbx/osgb/cesium.

so simply put:
tiled model's only purpose is to export as tiled model format, you can not edit anything with it, but it's much much faster to build, way more faster than build blocked model,  need less powerful computer to calculate.
blocked model can be edited, and exported, depends on the block size, you might need much powerful computer to calculate, if block size is big like > 400m, you need at 40G video memory to create texture for it.

[RobertMarshall]

As well as the section in the manual there is also a guide available for the Block Model feature

https://agisoft.freshdesk.com/support/solutions/articles/31000171950-block-model

Cleaning up a mesh is a lot easier when it is broken down into mesh tiles, it is a better experience than editing within a complete mesh, however you should refrain from performing any model functions on the tiles such as Smooth, Decimate, Refine, and be careful using Gradual Selection, it can lead to loss of overhanging objects that should be retained. These model functions should be performed on the complete mesh and not a mesh tile. Close Holes can be used on a tile as long as you control it by selecting an area on the mesh tile and tell Close Holes to use the selection.

You can also export those block tiles and import them into suitable software for repair work, then bring them back into the block model, I use Blender but be careful not to move the tile, just rotate it out of 90 to 0, make your edits, then revert rotation back to 90 before exporting. I am still new to this workflow and exploring it at the moment, I found if you move the tile the import back into MS this causes problems with alignment.

As for texturing ... steve3d posted about this (https://www.agisoft.com/forum/index.php?topic=16353.0).