New user - slight snag with my image array

[Cheesefrog]

Hello,

I'm very new to this software package, and have run into a slight snag...

When I align photos (set to high) it results in 3/4ths of them not being recognized, and ending up with a poor array.  I've only done a few tests with this program, and have actually had better luck when I spent a lot less time on the photos and lighting setup. 

I've probably just missed something simple... or am way off base in what I expect to get from these pictures?

Below is a link to the images I'm trying to process.  If anyone has time to take a quick peek and let me know what I've done wrong I would greatly appreciate it.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/0c2909g0z3czs0v/walnut.zip?dl=0

I made an attempt to follow the general lighting instructions in the tutorials... overcast, flat lighting.. no heavy shadows.

[Cheesefrog]

Would placing colored dots on the surface of the walnut help?  Assuming I didn't want to use the color data...

I suspect I'm erring on something simple.

Any help would be appreciated...

[Alexey Pasumansky]

Hello Cheesefrog,

Looks like the quality of the images themselves is not so good. It's necessary to pay more attention to the image sharpness, avoiding blurred areas, poor focusing and high noise.

[James]

Also, looks like the first 17 images are looking up at the walnut, whereas the last 8 are looking down, and there is no overlap between the two subsets, but could be wrong about that only looking at the thumbnails.

I also think you will get a better alignment of the first subset (couldn't be any worse!) if you reduce the angular interval/increase the number of shots - i.e. make it 25 or 30.

In general I would suggest taking more photos than you need, and working out the minimum that you need to get an alignment by disabling a few each time until it stops working, probably somewhere around 17 photos!

[Cheesefrog]

Thanks for the feedback, gents!

I had read in a tutorial that it was ok for some pictures to be blurry as other camera angles could make up that difference, but it sounds like I have too many that are blurry and the system isn't able to track the data properly.  That, and a wider spread of photos...

I made another quick test and had better results.  Not bad for just an iPhone 6s.  I'll keep plugging away!

Thanks again... this is a fun learning experience.

[Cheesefrog]

Knocked it out of the park.  Took 54 photos, paying more attention to quality and decreasing the angle between shots.

Ended up with a full array- no bad cameras.

Up next - retopologize the mesh, bake out normals, apply physics based materials, and slap it into Marmoset real time viewer.

*excited*

[Cheesefrog]

Done!  Here it is in a real time renderer with Phyics Based materials... thanks for the help on the photo shoot.

[Cheesefrog]

Having a lot of fun with this software... amazed at the clarity even just with my iPhone.  Have been doing a lot of outdoor shoots as well.  Will post some up later...

Recent pear I captured... I took the raw data into zBrush, cleaned up a couple of spots (stem), retopologized and UV'd the mesh, baked out some maps (normals, concavity, convexity, etc..), and rendered it in Marmoset.

[Cheesefrog]

Got violent with the pear, as a test.  I wanted to see how I could control the shiny surface on the inside of the pear.

I ended up whacking it with a spoon a few times to open it up, and then lightly sprinkled some flour on the exposed innards to dampen down the specularity.

Shot it, ran through AgiSoft, clean up in ZBrush, and displayed & lit in a realtime 3D engine.  To get the fleshy part to appear correctly I brought the specularity and gloss up a ways, and shot a transmission map for the light passing through.

Pics below:

[Cheesefrog]

Is it not recommended to process raw images?  I'm attempting a test with processing raw images at 4k, and the Build Dense Cloud stage (set to High) takes much, much longer than processing JPGs.

I understand the quality difference between the two, which probably explains the difference in the amount of time it takes.

However, my computer keeps closing the program after an hour or so into it, so I'm guessing the raw format is just too much for it to handle.  Brand new, fast PC...

Anyhow, any input would be appreciated.

[Cheesefrog]

Answered my own question... shoot RAW, process to TIFFs.

Well folks, it's been a fun one month trial, and I've decided to purchase a license.  I've created a ton of work in that time- if anyone wants to see more of it let me know and I can post it up. 

This software is too cool...