Do it Yourself Reality?

Disclaimer: This is an FYI, an example, NOT permission to break your corporate or government protocol and procedures.

This is presented as a possibility in certain circumstances.  While you can go out with your cell phone, with almost no training ("make sure each new photo has 30% overlap with the previous photo; don't zoom") and objects in the reality model can be aligned with and stretched to hard points in your CAD Models, it is very unlikely that your DIY Reality Model will match the precision of that created and processed by the professionals. 

Let's assume that you are in the very good habit of "walking your job" prior to design.  Let's assume that you are also in the very good habit of taking pictures as you go.

Alternatively, let's assume that you are in the habit of visiting potential "problem areas" to get a feel for what's going on.  You bring a phone with you.

In either case of those cases, you have pictures of the project.  How do you store the pictures?  You probably dump them into folder.  How do you search for a specific area or artifact?  Scroll through them.

What would it be like if you were able to simply dump the photos into a folder, have some software (ContextCapture) stitch them into single navigable 3D image?  How easy would it be able to find and evaluate an area or an issue?

Below is an example of a street section.  Perhaps there is a utility rehab scheduled.  Maybe you want a clearer picture of what's going on in that area, so you drive to the site and take some pictures.

Click here for a live view of a 3D reality model.  You can explore around it via computer, tablet or cell phone. It's really high detail, high value as a design tool.

This model took about 30 minutes (5 minutes of camera shots, 10 minutes of file transfer, 10 minutes of kicking off the processing, and 5 minutes of verifying).  This video gives a quick overview of the process and how to use it your normal design environment: just reference it in.

You can do this with almost no training (Training is available at Learn.Bentley.com)

Note that there are some rough edges in this capture.  They're easy to clean up, but were left in to show what you get with a 30-minute "unskilled" effort (the author hadn't shot anything in two years or so, and thought his random photo walk would just give an idea of what he'd have to go out and do properly.  Considering the lack of planning and prep, the results are really nice.  30 minutes.  Do It Yourself!

 

Information is at Bentley ContextCapture.