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ContextCapture | Descartes | Pointools | Orbit Wiki Make a Realistic Environment
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    • +Reality Modeling Wiki
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    Make a Realistic Environment

    If you have a point cloud outside you have probably noticed that the sky is not in the point cloud, and the standard grey background is not very fun.

    That is absolutely possible to solve by using high quality tileable textures. See pictures from pointools:


    Image
    Image
    Image

    First lets find some good textures. You will need one spherical image for the sky and one flat image for the ground. The spherical image should be created from a spherical camera, or else you will have a gap across the sky. It's very hard to create a gap-free image with panoramic photagraphy. You will need some "photoshop skills". The good think is that those kind of pictures is available for free on some sites. The bad thing is that very few consists of a clean sky. Therefore you still need some "photoshop skills". Spherical HDRI images are used in 3D rendering software to create realistic lights and reflection. I will use it as a texture.

    The flat texture can be any kind of image of the ground but preferable squared and tileable (can be put next to each other without creating visible gaps).
    You can find them here:
    http://www.hdrlabs.com/sibl/archive.html
    http://www.openfootage.net/

    I used this spherical image (32 megapixel photoshoped HDR, the water was not there in original image):

    1. Image

      And this flat texture (2048x2048 pixel tilable texture):
      Image
    2. I created a sphere with diameter=500m in Rhinoceros. Applied the spherical image as a texture with spherical UV-mapping. My sphere has its center in 0,0,0 but it easily changed to correspond to your point cloud.
      Image

      Then created a 0.1m thick floor (500x500m) and applied a flat texture with planar UV-mapping and a UV repeat of 250 (that is 2m/tile).
      Image

    3. I exported the models as .3ds files and imported them to pointools. Pointools asks for texture during the import (if it can't find them) so I can change textures easily every time. I also turned off shader “light models” in pointools because the light does not work very good inside a sphere.
    4. Just import point cloud and your done!

    You can download my plane and sphere here:
    Download

    By David Johansson
    http://ats.se
    Here is another example where the floor is two cylinders, one 25m and the second is 500m with a 25m hole in the center (where the first fit). Two different textures, one with stone and one with water.

    (The car was scanned with Faro Focus 3D scanner)

    Image


    • pointools point cloud clouds environment realistic render
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    • Dan Cutler Created by Bentley Colleague Dan Cutler
    • When: Wed, Nov 7 2012 9:49 AM
    • Revisions: 1
    • Comments: 0
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