Hi all,
I have some 360 degree photos (such as Street View-photo's) and I know the exact location of the photo in coordinates. These photos I'd like to read in such a way in MicroStation that the photo matches an existing surface (for example: an existing drawing of the road) with the photo. I've tried a few things with background and image, and placing a camera on the location of the photo location, but it will not succeed. Does anyone have experience with this?
You can make that happen in microstation manually, but its not easy. The method is to map the panoramic images onto the 6 faces of a cube, and put your camera at the precise center of that cube. Then by tedious trial and error, move and spin (move and rotate) the image cube, always moving the camera eye to keep the camera at the center of the image cube as you move the image cube. Continue with move and rotate trial and error until you find the image cube is correctly aligned with your model.
I have done this many times myself. It is not easy, but when done it can be very effective, as you can see here
communities.bentley.com/.../augmented-reality-for-building-construction-and-maintenance-augmenting-with-2d-drawings.aspx
I show it in action, combined with other things, several times here http://youtu.be/kQPxPF-lf5I
You can also see it here, used in another way http://youtu.be/XH2AGknyzW8
Using photos, as part of a data hybrid with models and point clouds, is certainly a smart thing to do. The viable use case list is generalizable (long and not narrow).
Would you be interested in a tool that makes it easy for you to move and spin your photos (standard or panoramic) into alignment with your models?
Hi Rob,
Thanks for your reply. Very interesting what you describe and show. Unfortunately, some of the youtube movies don't work, is the hyperlink correct?
Is it possible fot you to post a video in which you explain the process as you described above? And, indeed, if that process takes to much time ( I have many of this photo's) then a tool is a good idea..;-)
I've wanted to try this for a while, wouldn't it be as easy as using the 360deg image as a light probe (or spherical projection) and enable the background to be visible?
sorry that middle link was broken. Here is the link http://youtu.be/kQPxPF-lf5I
Let me get you signed up for an upcoming beta program. It will be great to get your feedback. Please email me at rob.Snyder@Bentley.com
That would certainly be a great way to do it. It would need some enhancement in the tools to allow you to store the rotation (around 3 axes) with a saved view that stores the corresponding camera position, so you can recall it when you need it and use it.
It would also need some work on the controls that allow you to see the background as you move the camera through space seeking the correct camera eye location to match the image, and lastly, once you have the right camera eye position, you would need controls that let you spin the image around the camera eye until the image is correctly aligned with the model.
@ John Allen, i think i have tried your suggestion, but my problem is dat the image used as background is presented with a different scale and rotation as the model. I could imagine how to deal with the rotation, but the scale is still a problem. I have placed the camera on the exact location.
I have attached the image as i see in the Explorer:
And as i see in MicroStation as background:
Thanks again.....
Photos + Point Clouds is a good idea.
Maybe Bentley should look at Calabi Yau 's method of fusing images to meshes generated from point clouds.
"Mesh rendering occurs automatically from the RGB and intensity information inherent within the scan data. Optionally, high resolution spherical images can be imported and fused to a decimated polygonal mesh. The combination of high resolution imagery with a decimated polygonal mesh relieves the system from the burden of scan resolution overkill. This option is very useful for many uses, including virtual survey. This feature provides the benefit of high visual acuity, with just enough mesh geometry to support highly accurate surveys."
Pointools may be fast with point clouds but a lot of the time that's not what is needed. Maybe the mesh tools and STM teams need to meet and brainstorm with the pointools guys.... ? Probably some GPU texturing capabilities available already?