What is your "Average" Processing Time?

[jamescandy]

Hello, everyone! I know creating a new thread for your first post is sometimes frowned upon, but I hope you'll forgive me this time! I've tried searching for information to my question from other posts on this forum, but it is difficult to gather enough data.

I've been playing with PhotoScan for the past 3 or 4 months, learning how to create cleaner and more accurate scans. Just a few days ago, I was able to purchase my own license, and am very happy to finally be able to save and export my projects!

My question is, how long would you say it typically takes to process your projects? From the initial loading of the raw images, to generating the final mesh? And what are your computer specs?

I'm very interested in reducing the amount of time it takes my computer to process the scans. Right now, it takes a lot longer than I would like, but if I'm able to get faster times by upgrading my computer, rather than buying a completely new one, that would obviously be ideal!

Currently, my average "waiting time" is about 3 hours. If I have a lot of points that match, sometimes it's closer to 4 - 5 hours. This is with the default quality values and 200,000 faces.

My computer specs are: Intel Quadcore CPU Q6600 @ 2.4 GHz with 3 GB RAM, and an NVIDIA GTX660 with 2 GB memory. I'm running Windows 7 64 bit OS.

Would increasing my RAM to 8 or 16 GB be enough to give me much better results? Or is my CPU a bigger bottleneck for speed? I appreciate any advice anyone can give me! Faster processing times would allow me to more quickly learn from my mistakes.

[airmap3d]

Short answer: your CPU is where the problem lies.

Your GPU is ok and from what I know if you don't have enough RAM the program will simply crash.  More RAM will allow you to process larger jobs.

What size are your projects?  How many images? Image size?

Unfortunately when dealing with large datasets you inevitably need a powerful computer.

[jamescandy]

Thank you for your advice, airmap3d! I did not know if the program might be running out of RAM quickly, and begin writing to the HDD.

My images are usually 18 MP (5,184 x 3,456), and I've been testing with sets of 25-40 images typically.

I will search for info on ideal CPU configurations when using PhotoScan, and try to discover if higher GHz speed or more CPUs is more effective. Thank you!