Best way to deliver 3D model locally

[dersuperpro1337]

Hello there!

I have an assignment to take some aerial shots of a chemical factory in my home town and I offered them to create a simple 3D model free of charge.
My current plan is, to deliver a link / embedded link to Sketchfab but I would love to know what other choices I have in order to give them the model so that they can show it locally.

My wish is to create a gif or video file of the model in constant rotation or with a camera path that could be easily embedded into a presentation or website.
On top of that, I would love to place the model on top of the satellite image of the area.

How could all of that be done the easiest? The only additional software I have at hand is C4D.

[Dragline]

Hey dersuperpro-

I've started using QTReader. It's a free point cloud viewer and is very easy to use. You just need to export the model as a *.las file then click and drag it into QTReader. I would also recommend High or Ultra for producing the dense cloud if your rig can manage it. Models look a lot better with a high point density

[dersuperpro1337]

Thank you Dragline, but this does not help me very much.

What I want is to share the 3D model of this factory with their management in a way that they can present it in some form without ANY further work for them.

-> The easiest would be an interactive, standalone model that could be opened and looked at like a 360° image in Quicktime.
-> Another great possibility would be for me to create a short video of the model rotating around its own axis and a video with a custom camera path around the model.

The problem with creating a video out of the 3D model is:
1) Cinema4D does not show a model in a way that I like. The texturing and lighting of an .obj file is way different than when I export the model to Sketchfab.
If I could find a way to display the model in C4D with proper lighting and texturing, a camera path + recording would be very easy to do.

2) Google Earth lets me display a model with up to 600k polygons on top of the aerial images, which looks great. Sadly I cannot create any kind of nice camera movement with a custom path and custom movements in this very basic software.

Plus: I have absolutely no clue how I can deliver any kind of 3D model to a client who has no technical experience and just wants to zoom and rotate. The only way I found is Sketchfab. But Sketchfab is online only, cannot be embedded in - say - a Powerpoint presentation, cannot be opened with one click and requires the model to be public on my profile page.

In general, how do other people "share" 3D models anyway? And what kind of strategy would you suggest for me?
I mean, sure - The 3D model will be just an addition to my drone photos & videos, and is therefore not as important. But I want to deliver it in an easy and compelling way nevertheless.

[SP74]

Hi dersuperpro1337,

For a user to simple view a model, I find it simplest to generate it as a tiled model, output it in photoscan tiled  format and simple have the user install Photoscan and use the free viewer.  Very large models can be viewed this way. 

Alternatively I have been trialing Cesium, which allows you to view a tiled model via a web page, but requires a web server (apache) to be installed.  With only a few extra lines of code in the html, you can display models using this interface.  You can also at camera paths to the code too.

But I am not getting not getting good results from Cesium tiles as per the below thread;  The look poor when zoomed out, only once you zoom in to an intermediate zoom level the coorect geometry and texture is rendered.

http://www.agisoft.com/forum/index.php?topic=9861.0

For single file meshes, Blender can be used for fly-thoughs, whilst opensource it has a learning curve.

Cheers,

SP

[JMR]

If point cloud is enough for you, I would suggest you to use www.PoinBox.xyz
It is free as is.

Here your are an exapmple https://www.pointbox.xyz/clouds/5b604f60f184900001a94c30

Sign in for an account and start sharing your clouds.

[chrisd]

I noticed that PointBox is using potree. I have not had a chance to test potree myself.

I suppose it would not be a convenient way to distribute scans if the receiver had to install a webserver to view the scan "online", versus running it locally in a browser.

EDIT:  Unfortunately potree cannot be run locally as stated here:
http://potree.org/getting_started.html

[macsurveyr]

Have you looked at the Viewer app included with PhotoScan and now, Metashape? You can export .tls or .oc3 files and then view them in Viewer.

Or you could just use Metashape to view. You can open projects in an unlicensed version of Metashape and view without restriction.

Just some thoughts.

Tom

[Darko]

That's the old problem. First the Viewer is missing measuring tools and, what is also important it cannot be installed without full Metashape download, I don't like to give my surveying tools to customers. Agisoft should make a standalone version of the Viewer with mrasuring tools just for our customers.

[Seboon]

Maybe this?
https://www.shapeways.com/forum/t/meshy-a-browser-based-tool-for-doing-measurements-and-post-processing.79571/