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Snaps to 3D

Editorial Type: Review     Date: 03-2018    Views: 3506      









Vectorworks has introduced Photos to 3D Model, a photogrammetry application that can transform a series of digital photographs into a geometrically correct 3D model

Capturing the 3D form of a building has now become a lot easier. All you need to do is take a number of snaps of the structure in question, upload them to Vectorworks Cloud Services, click on an icon and all of the complicated stuff will be done for you, and presented to you as a 3D model, which you can then use as a reference for subsequent modelling or for any other visualisation purpose.

There are a couple of reasons you might want to do this. Buildings might be designed in isolation, but in reality they will be situated in an environment populated by other buildings and will have to blend in, or they may even form extensions to existing structures. Having an accurate model as the starting point, complete with an indication of its textures, colours and other non-geometric imagery provides architects with the best possible examples of the building features and its environment.

You will have noticed that I qualified the 3D model's attributes. The 3D surfaces are no more than digital images blended together to create a geometrically correct structure, which have to be scaled before they can be used. Walls, doors, windows and other features can be added to the 3D image using standard architectural tools if you wish to convert it to a usable 3D model. So much easier, though, than having to do a complete manual survey of a building before you can work on it.

Photogrammetry is a reality capture functionality that has been integrated within Vectorworks 2018, announced alongside the latest enhancements to Vectorworks Cloud Services, which you must also have signed up for, as that's where all the hard work is done.

Loading the file of images is a simple drag and drop operation, or you can use the Nomad app, of which more later. The application looks at all of the images - which must have a degree of overlap between each - and stitches them together, rather like panoramic scenes that are created within standard digital cameras, to provide an accurate 3D image of the complete structure.

At this stage, there is no scale to the 3D model. To add a scale, from which you will be able to draw other measurements, you simply select a door or window which has a height or width known to you, and mark that on the model. The software then has a reference measurement that can be used to size the whole model, and subsequent measurements taken from it will be to the same scale.

All of the 3D model's surface features are used as reference points for the insertion of Vectorworks components, gradually building up the complete 3D architectural model. Digital colours and textures may be retained to provide realistic imagery, if the finished 3D model is to be used for Augmented Reality (AR) or other visualisations, or replaced by components that have their own material or textured imagery for construction purposes.

PHOTOGRAMMETRY VERSUS POINT CLOUDS
Point clouds, produced using 3D laser scanners, can also produce highly detailed and accurate 3D simulations of complex surfaces, but because of the cost of the equipment, the expertise required to use them, and the time it takes to set them up and complete the scanning process (prior to the use of photogrammetry using digital photos, they were quoting speed as a prime feature when compared to traditional surveying methods) they are more often employed as a costly service.

However, they do have advantages over the triangulated meshes of photogrammetry which may, in some instances, be generated with gaps appearing in the mesh. Point clouds can also be used to model some components, especially in process plant applications, where the software can recognise features like pipes, cylinders, etc. and replace them with real components. The models can also be sliced, cut into sections and otherwise modified in order to assist the design process.

As Vectorworks' new Photos to 3D Model feature can quite happily handle both point clouds and the output from the photogrammetry process, there is no reason why both technologies cannot be employed together on the same project.

IMAGE PROCESSING CAVEATS
There is obviously quite a lot of image processing required to sample, calculate and link together all of the digital images, hence the use of cloud computing to complete the job in a reasonable time, and although there are no limits to the number of images you would like to process, common sense requires you to supply just enough for current purposes - unless you are quite happy to wait a couple of days for the output. Images can be used from digital cameras, tablets, drones (for aerial shots) or even from mobile phones.

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