12-21-2014, 11:10 AM
After doing a bunch more research on the current state of cheap-or-free photogrammetry software options, it seems Autodesk's 123DCatch is still one of the best options. I have not tested Catch recently, but when it first came out I ran it through some sample images I made. Results were usable, but only after a lot of adjustments and manual patching. At that time, I felt that - if I had to build something to match a real-world object - I'd be better off sticking with normal manual polygonal modeling to image-plane references, in most cases.
The one really plausible alternative seems to be this guy's path: a combination of the Open-Sourced applications VisualSFM and MeshLab. He's written up a very comprehensive and detailed post on his whole workflow and thought process...it's worth reading.
And worth noting two of his points:
- VisualSFM is not easy to get installed, he says
- "123DCatch isn't that bad: ....it seems that Catch (Smart3DCapture) does a better job matching images and meshing them than my solution does some of the time, but that you have way more control over the input / output using my pipeline."
The one really plausible alternative seems to be this guy's path: a combination of the Open-Sourced applications VisualSFM and MeshLab. He's written up a very comprehensive and detailed post on his whole workflow and thought process...it's worth reading.
And worth noting two of his points:
- VisualSFM is not easy to get installed, he says
- "123DCatch isn't that bad: ....it seems that Catch (Smart3DCapture) does a better job matching images and meshing them than my solution does some of the time, but that you have way more control over the input / output using my pipeline."