Late last week I started work on developing a strategy for shooting buildings and environments from ground level based on what I've learnt so far. The first test run (
https://sketchfab.com/models/736c32f7ca1a47aaa00f3ece03d6e8b6 was quite fruitful, as I managed to anticipate most of the problems I'd have and most of my strategies worked. There were however a number difficult challenges for which there didn't seem to be many easy answers except for take a whole lot images that weren't necessarily going to contribute to the model.
And along came the pre release and fisheye support. Nearly all of the difficulties I'd had related to space restrictions making it difficult to create tie points around corners. A fisheye lens is going to be useful for this because I can get both the building and the ground in the frame at close range, with the ground providing tie points around the corner. Ran a quick test on the corner of a building at work and it was very promising. (Canon 1Ds III, 15mm f2.8 )
Went back yesterday and shot the whole building, including one wall where there was only 2m of space. As I was shooting it though, I kept thinking of what I'd seen in the previous test and what else might work. I went a little overboard and 500 photos later I'd captured the building, surrounding gardens and a table setting. Did a quick alignment of 20 images to see what it was going to look like and was excited to see peripheral areas that I wasn't even thinking of showing up. The main chunk of 300 photos is processing now, but my mind has been in overdrive thinking of the possibilities for the various researchers I work with.
I'm going to predict that fisheye support in PS is going to en up a whole new range of possibilities and applications.
Bring on the revolution!
