interesant application - removing SHADOWS

[Wishgranter]

http://www.tandent.com/products/computergraphics/

Possibly BEST solution to remove shadows........ but it cost a lot for now.....

im see here a solution to create texture in HDR and remove the shadows aftherwards......

[FoodMan]

wow thanks a lot  Wishgranter for that awesome link !

looks like it can also remove reflections.. and I must say for Pscan that would be a must !!...

f/

[Kjellis85]

Did anyone test this software?

[meshmaster]

Did anyone test this software?

Yes.

I've used it and it certainly works.   

At least to me it seems as if this application can be very useful, however, from my testing its use seems somewhat limited.  In my opinion this application is best when used in a situation where there simply is no better option, and in those cases it could save the day.  However, I think that if possible it is always better to try and fix problematic shadow problems in production -- rather than post production.  In other words, move your lights rather than try to solve with software ;-)   Obviously, this isn't always possible... and in those cases LB might be able to help you fix things.

In my tests, it was more useful for environments and objects that it was on human subjects.  I did do quite a few trials using humans and the results were very mixed.

It's a cool application, but it was very hard to justify the price... especially when I can fix 90% of lighting problems before they occur.

[Kjellis85]

Good to know. I am having some issues with shadows from trees in a field from about 6m above ground that are causing miss-alignment. Not sure what to do with the case, can't re-shoot images. I am testing the software this weekend to see if it will do the trick.

[meshmaster]

Good to know. I am having some issues with shadows from trees in a field from about 6m above ground that are causing miss-alignment. Not sure what to do with the case, can't re-shoot images. I am testing the software this weekend to see if it will do the trick.

It should work very well for that sort of thing.  Let us know how you get on, would be interested to hear what you think.

Cheers

J

[RalfH]

Pretty cool. Makes me wonder how they did this and whether it would be possible to incorporate something like this into Photoscan.

[Kjellis85]

Ok, so I did some quick tests with the software and I was not blown away. It did show some potential for removing shadows, but it was not the most intuitive or easy-to-use software I have tested. It is quite time consuming and the results not always as good as they need to be in order to justify the extra time consumption. I will do some more tests, but for a fast pipeline this might not be so usefull.

ANd if anyone would like to test it (if they have a license/trial version) here is an image that I am trying to "fix" https://www.dropbox.com/s/ipuofw8xu1xx6wj/DSC_0159.JPG

[meshmaster]

Ok, so I did some quick tests with the software and I was not blown away. It did show some potential for removing shadows, but it was not the most intuitive or easy-to-use software I have tested. It is quite time consuming and the results not always as good as they need to be in order to justify the extra time consumption. I will do some more tests, but for a fast pipeline this might not be so usefull.

ANd if anyone would like to test it (if they have a license/trial version) here is an image that I am trying to "fix" https://www.dropbox.com/s/ipuofw8xu1xx6wj/DSC_0159.JPG

Yep, that was pretty much the same conclusion that I came to as well.

I think if they dropped the price on this by quite a lot it would be well worth considering, but at its current price point... I don't think it's justified.

Cheers,

J

[tezen]

The idea of manual shadow-removal for PhotoScan-3D-objects:

1. You have to load the object (without any "object-texture") into a renderer of your choice (f.e. 3DsMax) and place some lightsources which should fit the real scene (like a distant-light for the sun or some bulbs for indoor-photogrammetery).
2. Within a proper UV-map on that 3D-object you have to bake the lights into the texture-map.
3.  Load the "object-texture" into the image-software of your choice (f.e. Photoshop) and use the (inversed) "light-baked-map" (point 2) as a mask for changing the saturance, intensity and so on to fit the colors of the darker/shadowed areas to the lightened areas.
4. There would be some problems on that shadow-removed-texure at the edges between the mask (recolored areas) and the unchanged object-texure which you have to clean up.
5. Asign the manually generated texture to the 3D-object and it should look quite good.

My question is if this could be done automatically.
Is there any algorythm available to calculate the direction of light sources by luminance (point 1)?
The light-map-baking (point 2) is easy doing and should not be a big problem (point 2).
There are algorythms available (for videosoftware) to match two different pictures (in this case the masked and the unmasked area) to fit each other in luminance and color (point 3).
A clean up has to be done manually (point 4) - even Photoshop cannot clean up automatically.
The easiest part is to load the new generated texture onto that object.

The automatisation of this kind would move PhotoScan a big step forward!

[James]

If photos/model are georeferenced and timestamped then photoscan could calculate the position of the sun automatically without needing to be too clever.

edit: It would only help with shadows cast by the object itself though, not things out of camera view like trees etc.

[smoluck]

For Landscape photogrammetry you should take a look at Luxology Modo, cause he got a precise Sun lighting renderer, with the conjunction of EXIF time / date information shoot and of GPS positioning, you can match precisely this needs. Of course you can also bake out the lighting/shadow render pass out to use it as a blend mask.