Photogrammetry with a Smartphone

Jerc

Hey everyone, we just published a tutorial about how to get good photogrammetry results using a Smartphone camera, Photoscan and Substance.

Click!

This one is focused on a 3d outdoor scan, we will also publish another tutorial in a few weeks covering seamless material creation.

Please let us know what you think and if you already have experience with DIY photogrammetry or if you tried our method, we would love to hear your feedback!

cptSwing

Very nice, waiting for that 2nd tutorial. Might be time to start hopping on the scan-train..

gfelton

I'm glad stuff like this is released so I'm always reminded at the ridiculous rate at which technology is advancing. This sounds like a lot of fun, I'm going to have to give this a try some time!

Decordova360

Yes very nice indeed.

Tomiajayi

especially with iphon7 might be a revolution in 3d on the horizon..

Justo

That was a great article! Loving this new direction for texturing, the more options artists have the better. Quixel is making a big push on this too, don't get left behind Substance team!

Aabel

Photogrammetry + substance = killer texturing workflow!

albertagung.ag

This is a very lovely article. I just did a quick overview about the tutorial and made my mind to stay tuned for the update.

Lazore

Cool tutorial man! On a cloudy day for some months ago i gave photogrammetry with a smartphone a try.

Used Agisoft, Zbrush for the baking, you can check it out here: http://jakobappleby.com/Photogrammetry-Test

chrisavigni

I've been playing around with photogrammetry myself and  being able to clone stamp all maps at once is a huge time saver! Also I must say the delight filter is superb! Looking forward for the update.

Chantel-sky

Can't wait for the 2nd tutorial. Have been wanting to give photogrammetry a go for a little while now  

Ryusaki

For a moment i was sad because i have no smartphone (don't ask), but then i realized i have a photo camera. 

Chris Rohlfing

Is there a way to use laser scanners to get this type of result or is using photos a better option. I have some Faro laser scanners at work and would like to explore new ways on how to implement them.

Prime8

Nice, makes me wanna give it a try too.
Is there a specific reason why you choose to create the height map in Substance instead of baking it in Blender as well?

gnoop

Yeah,  doing depth from normal map  is very wrong.    As of laser scanners  they can't do so detailed mesh Photoscan can.  Not even close.        My recent Photoscan model was around 800 mil polys  per  a few meters of a surface.  

In my experience  photogrammetry based materials works so-so  with  Substance Designer/Painter.  Both softs are  not suited well for too hi-res sources .  Works ok only when you scan a small  fragment  and then "make it tile" through the whole texture.

 But  the main point of photogrammetry  is  opposite,  an ability  to make unique and  real   surface across pretty big extent.   Once you try to do something like this , Substance Designer would make you hitting your head against a wall.      

Jerc

Prime8 said:

Nice, makes me wanna give it a try too.
Is there a specific reason why you choose to create the height map in Substance instead of baking it in Blender as well?

We could have. Generating the height in Designer is just faster and automatically updates anytime we rebake or tweak the normal. You'll find that with organic/high frequency surfaces, the height generated by the filter in SD is very close to what you would have baked and the quality is good enough for this asset that doesn't have large low frequency details.
For hard surface scans or organic stuff with very protruding elements such as big rocks, you probably want to bake the height instead.

m4dcow

Jerc said:

Prime8 said:

Nice, makes me wanna give it a try too.
Is there a specific reason why you choose to create the height map in Substance instead of baking it in Blender as well?

We could have. Generating the height in Designer is just faster and automatically updates anytime we rebake or tweak the normal. You'll find that with organic/high frequency surfaces, the height generated by the filter in SD is very close to what you would have baked and the quality is good enough for this asset that doesn't have large low frequency details.
For hard surface scans or organic stuff with very protruding elements such as big rocks, you probably want to bake the height instead.

Yeah, In this case it is good enough, but it is easy to bake the height too since you have that geometry data.
The results from the height to normal can be pretty good, and can be useful to generate height in cases where you only have a normal map.

I've been messing with foliage capture here and using normal to height looked pretty decent even though my setup is pretty flawed at the moment.

Prime8

Jerc said:

Prime8 said:

Nice, makes me wanna give it a try too.
Is there a specific reason why you choose to create the height map in Substance instead of baking it in Blender as well?

We could have. Generating the height in Designer is just faster and automatically updates anytime we rebake or tweak the normal. You'll find that with organic/high frequency surfaces, the height generated by the filter in SD is very close to what you would have baked and the quality is good enough for this asset that doesn't have large low frequency details.
For hard surface scans or organic stuff with very protruding elements such as big rocks, you probably want to bake the height instead.

I see, thanks for the answer.

littleclaude

FYI Photogrammetry thread - http://polycount.com/discussion/140949/photogrammetry-thread-best-practice