High demands need a high end computer. Help please

[AAS]

So my job is to become the office Photo Scan Pro guy for a new development project.
That's not a problem but our computing power is.

My problem:
We are using in excess of 1500 photos to generate a 3D model of a long pipe.
We are using a computer with:
Inte Core i7 3820  3.60 Ghz / 3.60Ghz
24gb on ram ..a good computer for a gamer, a less than ideal one for 3D rendering.

So far matching points has taken 110 hours, with 34 hours to go
Of course this is not ideal I am just uncertain how much money a good set up will cost.
I need to prepare a spec sheet of an ideal computer and have no idea what I should be asking for.
Our budget would be between $7 to 10K USD for in house processing PC.

Is this even possible?

This forum is awesome, and I have learned a lot about the software, but everyone seems to be talking about 90 pictures or 100 pictures. I am WAY over this and need some professional guidance.

Thanks so much for the awesome community, hopefully I can contribute in the future.

Happy rendering.

[Alexey Pasumansky]

Hello AAS,

What alignment parameters are you using?

I suggest that Generic pre-selection will reduce the processing time significantly.

[AAS]

OK I will do that next time around,  I am afraid to touch the software right now. Losing 111 hrs of processing time is not on my Monday to do list. haha

Thanks for the suggestion though, I will do that moving forward.
I fear I may need a lot of RAM though to expedite this.
My GPU and CPU are definitely not the limiting reagents here.

[AAS]

Actually, I just looked and my GPU in this machine is a GTX 680. Room for improvement for sure.

[David Cockey]

GPU is not used during for alignment, only for creating the dense surface point cloud. Alignment uses only the CPU.

How much memory is currently being used during the alignment? If memory is available additional memory will not increase speed. If no memory is available then the system may be swapping data in and out of memory which drastically increases processing time. In Windows you can use the Performance tab in Task Manager to monitor memory and CPU usage. Performance Manager can be started for more detailed information. I use Open Hardware Monitor to monitor GPU usage as well as CPU and memory usage. It also shows temperatures if they are available.


One way to significantly reduce processing time:

1) Break the pipeline into chunks which overlap, and have several photos used in both chunks of each overlapping pair.

2) Align the photos in each chunk separately. Save after each chunk is aligned so that you won't lose everything if the computer crashes for some reason.

3) Align the chunks using the "camera" method. This is very quick but requires that each chunk have several photos which are used in at least one other chunk.

[AAS]

David,

Great post. Thanks a million

Following your instructions with still 11 hours to go (133 hrs elapsed)

Currently CPU Usage is at 100%
And my Physical Memory has 24548MB total, available 2380MB, free is only 7MB

I would guess I could benefit from a CPU and memory upgrade, am I correct?

[David Cockey]

Increased memory only helps if you are running out of memory.

CPU speed is a major factor in how time align photos takes.

[airmap3d]

Q.  Do you have GPS coordinates for the images?  Are you able to select 'Ground Control' while aligning images?

I perform surface modelling via a UAV and have just processed a job with 2500 images in 4hrs on my custom built portable workstation ($7k).  So your jobs are well within reasonable capabilities if you invest in some decent processing power.  Your budget of $7-$10k should get you a beast of a machine that would chew up jobs like that!!
Like the other posters have stated, more RAM will make no difference unless you are actually running out of RAM and the GPU is not used for Align Photos.  Big beefy CPU(s) is what you need!