Re-Import Mesh and export a DEM

[JD]

My University is looking to purchase photoscan but its not clear if it can accomplish what they are looking for.

We would use Photoscan to make terrain models this process seems very clear in the manual.  From what I've read we'll  reference a coordinate system after a terrain has been processed using local coordinates using markers.

The question at hand is that we know we will be post editing the terrains in Autodesk mudbox to make corrections to the textures and mesh itself before importing into a GIS.

Can photoscan re import an edited mesh and re reference it so it can be exported as a orthophoto and DEM?  If so... how is this done?

[JD]

Does Anybody have a thought if Photoscan can re orientate a .obj mesh that was edited outside of Photoscan.   Its expected that we will want to clean up the photoscan exported model before generating a dem from Photoscan.  From the readings and literature it seems that Photoscan doesn't have this ability but I need to confirm this.

I would apprechate some feedback and or suggestions.
Thank you

[RalfH]

You can re-import meshes that were exported from Photoscan and have been modified (cleaned up) in external software. As I understand it, this is for cleaning up only - if the model is rotated, scaled or translated, Photoscan's camera positions and orientations will not match the model anymore and further processing (e.g. texture generation) will fail or produce bad results.

[JD]

Hey RalfH thank you, that make sense and seems to collaborate some of other posts here in the forum... but your reply defined how it should work.

In regards to model orientation with GIS and several other packages we use. Object orientation can be a  bit tricky.  Sometimes what faces up and exported out of our GIS will be on its side or upside down in a modeling application.  Its a major issue sometimes.

With Photoscan, I've read some posts where this seems to be an issue.  Is there a solution within photoscan to correct this... I read somewhere about a python script that flips or orientates the model to the bounding box or something.  Not sure this how that would relate to exporting to a second modeling application.

I just want to make sure that what comes out of Photoscan won't cause another set of problems that take more time to resolve than originally planed for.

Thank you for taking the time to reply to my original question... It is very much appreciated.
cheers

[RalfH]

As I am only working with the standard version, I don't have experience with Python scripts in Photoscan.