3D model KMZ won't load in GoogleEarthPro or ArcGIS Earth

[ZacJohnson]

Trying to export my 3D model with the hope of overlaying it in google earth. It has been georeferenced and all that. The orthomosaic KMZ from the same work set imports to GE perfectly... but the model (export model) just sits there loading forever.

I initially tried a 100mb file and tried an 11mb file.

I tried various combination of export options (been on the computer for about 6 hours trying to get it working).

If I load it into ArcGIS, it will load fast but it stutters to the point it is unusable and there is nothing to see.

Interestingly Google Earth knows where the file "exists" when I bring it in, as it will pan to the location the images were taken.

Any suggestions will be hugely appreciated, I am willing to try anything at this stage.

Thanks in advance
Zac

[Alexey Pasumansky]

Hello Zac,

How many polygons are in the exported model and what's the size of the texture atlas?

[ZacJohnson]

Wow fast reply

There are 1million faces on the 3d model.

The texture size/count is 4096 x1.

The resulting KMZ export is only 25mb, which is less than the 66mb orthomosaic that I had no problem with.

I also tried it with 500k faces, (which was the 11mb file) which had exactly the same problem.

[Alexey Pasumansky]

Hello Zac,

Can you send the smaller KMZ to support@agisoft.com?

[ZacJohnson]

I just sent that through, thanks so much for the support, it's really appreciated.

[Alexey Pasumansky]

Hello Zac,

Thank you for sending the file.

I assume that the issue may be related by the multitexturing used for this model. Probably Google Earth doesn't support it.

So the recommendation is to rebuild the texture using 4000 x 4000 texture atlas, for example, that should be actually larger than five 1000x1000 atlas pages. You may also use Adaptive Orthophoto mapping mode for this type of project.

[ZacJohnson]

When you select adaptive orthophoto, which is what I have been using, there is no second field to select the size of the texture atlas. It is displayed as 4000 x [blank]. As in, I cannot change the Y axis length, only the X axis (or is it visa versa?) if you know what I mean.

I have also tried the file I sent you which is 1000 x

Could you please explain to me what you mean by multitexturing exactly?

Thanks

[Alexey Pasumansky]

Hello Zac,

There's actually no width and height fields in the Build Texture dialog. The first field defines both dimensions for square texture atlas and the second one has the meaning of number of pages in the atlas (applicable to Generic mapping mode only).
So I suggest to use 4096 x 1, which means that there will be one texture atlas page with 4096x4096 pixel dimensions.

[ZacJohnson]

yes 4096 x 1 is what I have been initially using and have tried many times.

How can you see the file I sent you is "multitexture"? I never built a multitexture because the option wasnt even available (I don't use generic, adaptive orthophoto works out the best so far).

[ZacJohnson]

Just to make sure, I went back and did as you suggested, still same problem.

[Alexey Pasumansky]

Hello Zac,

That's interesting, but after waiting some time (5-10 minutes) in Google Earth I've got your original model displayed, but it is shown under the ground, so I had to modify Altitude in the model properties and use Clamped to the ground option.
So maybe it takes some time for the application to display all the polygons and apply the texture.

As for the multitexxturing, I've unpacked KMZ and imported model to PhotoScan where in the Mesh UVs there's five pages displayed.

[ZacJohnson]

Wow thanks for that, I don't know why the altitude was -37. One step closer to solving the problem thanks to you

Now, I agree GE will definitely not like multiple textures, that will probably cause the long loading times. Do you know why or how there would be 5 UV maps generated? Where exactly can I see this? And do you know how I can change it to be just 1?

And do you have any tips for producing the best looking model that isn't overly exerting resources. For example, is it better to render a high quality mesh then decimating the mesh or just producing a medium quality mesh? Most of the time my meshes come out looking blobby.

A feature I would absolutely love would be if we could could export the dense point cloud as a kmz or similar file type. Personally I think a good quality dense cloud looks better than a mesh (maybe I just haven't made a good mesh yet).

My end goal here is to be able to provide simple attractive 3D maps of client properties for them to view in a simple familiar interface like Google Earth. I have spent a lot of time and money building a mapping UAV, now I am at the post processing stage. I have tried pix4d and personally find photoscan to be a league above it, been great so far.

[Alexey Pasumansky]

Hello Zac,

I've opened Tools Menu -> Mesh -> View Mesh UVs and in the bottom-left corner there's a switch between the texture atlas pages.
Texture count should be set to 1 in the Build Texture dialog to have only one texture atlas.

For the mesh generated in Arbitrary mode there's no difference if you are using custom polygon count in the Build Mesh dialog or decimating to this number later, but Height Field mode may produce more detailed output if decimation is performed in steps (at least according to the user reports).

As for the point cloud export to KMZ, I'm not sure, if Google Earth support that, but you can consider other options of point cloud export, for example, potree format, or direct upload to 4DMapper and Pointscene.

[ZacJohnson]

Yeh that's what I thought, because when I open up the mesh UV's it only shows me 1, I'm a bit confused as to why it was showing 5 for you.

I also opened the KMZ with 7-zip to look at the files and there is only 1 texture there.

Thanks for the tips and point cloud suggestion, I will look at them now.