Hey!
...as described above it would be nice to have a new reconstruction-method called "mask" (besides abituary, heightfield and pointcloid). Like ZBrushes shadowbox in more than 3 directions and within perspective distortion. The result should look like basic carved wood and even much better than low-poly or pointcloud-reconstruction. You could use that wood-like-object for boolean-operations inside other software (@Infinite&Mr.Curious: ...and you only have to do it once per object - by macroscript inside ZBrush

). But thats not automatic enough!
Measuring distances between an high-abituary-reconstruction and that object could be used for calculating critical zones (=inner edges - I hope you know what I mean!). As the distance increases the abituary-reconstruced points should move in their own Z-direction down (or up) to the wood-like-object. For correct shapes (non-overlapping) the normals of those points have to be smoothened by their neighbors.
The problem with the critical zones (=inner edges) depends mostly on the smooth-algorythm (beneath lightning) I think. Using a sharp-algorythm most polys stay in the right position. Maybe a mix between the sharp and the smooth algorythm will be the solution (sharp at zones with lots of 3D-information and smooth at zones without many info and/or lots of holes)? It would increase the details alot. Look for yourself and take a test with photos of your choice. You could use the same generated depthmaps (BTW: In Batch-mode theres a missing option for turning off rebuild depthmaps).
A mix between mild and aggressive depth filtering (aggressive at zones with lots of 3D-info and mild at zones without) would increase details at pre-processing-stage? Dont know! But individual settings depending on the objects area (data-ammount, edgy or soft surface etc.) instead of static settings (p1,p2 which are now calling mild,moderate&aggressive or sharp (=0) and smooth (=1 - gaussian algorythm?)) could increase the quality of the result. These are just ideas - maybe someone is inspired by these!
Greetings
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