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Automatically turn your 2D aerial imagery into 3D

Posted by Chris Anderson on May 20, 2011 at 9:48am


From the Google Earth blog:

When discussing the new Ovi Maps 3D a few days ago, one interesting point about their maps are how they are generated -- hundreds of aerial photographs, automatically converted to 3D.

It's apparently growing into a popular technique, as Pix4D is showing off some similar technologies.

In the article they mention using the Swinglet CAM as a great way to capture the imagery for uses like this. The "4D" part of the equation is time; you can view the progress of 3D buildings through time, assuming you've done enough captures of a particular area.

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Comments

  • T3
    Krzysztof Bosak May 26, 2011 at 6:35am

    @Ritchie The problem is that ppl with sufficient background are already employed at the university.

    http://www.micmac.ign.fr/

    http://www.micmac.ign.fr/index.php?id=3

     

  • Ritchie May 25, 2011 at 4:19am

    @Krzystof

    I am unable to find even a single open source system. Notoriety does not mean fact and I'm sure between a group of people with sufficient background could decypher anything within the code, big or small.

     

    @YureZzZ 

    You cannot fly within 3 miles in the UK and similar distances around the globe. Taking pictures behind a fence on the ground is not using a UAV :)

  • YureZzZ May 25, 2011 at 3:32am
    @Ritchie Taking photos of airports is legal if you don't fly inside it or really high. Remember the plane spotters.
  • T3
    Krzysztof Bosak May 24, 2011 at 5:36pm

    @Ritchie "I'm waiting for an open source version so we can get into the maths."

    I am pretty sure you several open source soft for this in Europe (once per developed country).

    The software is usually several MB of source code and even when you got it it is useless until you spend 1 year learning it. Such projects are notoriously beyond uynderstanding for a non-professional (not a researcher in the field).

  • Ritchie May 24, 2011 at 4:39pm
    Mapping airports would be probably be illegal in most countries unless they shut it down specially for you. I'm waiting for an open source version so we can get into the maths.
  • YureZzZ May 24, 2011 at 4:04pm
    I've been waiting for the moment when this thing is going to be automatic. My idea to use it for creating 3d images of airports, so we could have real graphics in flight simulators.
  • T3
    Krzysztof Bosak May 23, 2011 at 9:28am

    They come as jpeg because 750 RAWs are likely to explode everything, while this is only one hour of flying.

    Also continuous shooting rate of practically all cameras shooting RAW is slow, some 10s. (don't look at the specs, they never publish continuous shooting rate, crowd says it depends on SD card but it doesn't, it most often depends on internal processing speed since the cards are very fast now, varies widely from make to make and is never published since nobody really cares).

  • Scotty May 23, 2011 at 8:36am
    How would you geo-tag these hundreds of photos? and any particular format preference? (jpeg vs. raw ect.)
  • T3
    Krzysztof Bosak May 21, 2011 at 5:29am

    This is a service...

    http://www.pix4d.com/aboutus.html

     

    Also... there is standalone

    http://www.pix4d.com/uavProductsLight.html

     

    @brakar

    Use Erdas ER Viewer for huge files. For mass-viewing hundreds of smaller images the best is AcdSee.

  • Arno de Jager May 21, 2011 at 4:29am
    How much does this program cost? There's no download nor a buy button on the website
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