Documenting prototype buildings for modelling purposes

[nygma]

Not that I scratch built a single building, but I have been taking photos of buildings that I like. Than I realized that it is not too easy to remember a building from a bunch of photos taken months or years ago. But there is a solution. I found two very useful programs for this issue:
Microsoft Photosynth imports all you photos taken from a building and builds the 3D environment just be looking at the photos and trying to determine where the pictures were taken from and how the pictures relate to each other in terms of their respective position. This is all done without any user intervention. At the end you get a virtual 3D space where you can move around and observe your subject from all angles and locations.
AutoPano is a panoramic photo creation tool, and I use it to stitch detailed photos taken from a building facade and merge them into one high resolution image. It has some nice tools to remove distortion from the image and create a geometrically correct (?) image of a facade which can be traced to create plans.
I create a 15 min video to demostrate these features:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UCzH...y a professional quality, nevertheless enjoy.

 

[tramcar trev]

Yes, I like this!!!! I plan to build quite a few buildings and though I have basic dimensions this is a great tool....

 

[Dtsteam]

Excellent idea, and a nicely made tutorial. What did you use to record the screen cam ?

http://photosynth.net/default

 

[gregh]

Very nice tutorial. Thanks for the work and the information.

 

[nygma]

Excellent idea, and a nicely made tutorial. What did you use to record the screen cam ?

http://photosynth.net/default

I am using CamStudio. Free, easy to use and works just fine. Than Cyberlink Videostudio to edit the final material.
http://camstudio.org/

 

[ge_rik]

That's great - thanks. I've not come across Photosynth which looks really interesting (and free!). I've used PhotoStory 3 (another freebie for XP from MS)
http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details?id=11132 < Link To http://www.microsoft.com/.../details?id=11132

and Photo Gallery (for W7)

http://explore.live.com/windows-live-essentials-photo-gallery-get-started < Link To http://explore.live.com/w...to-gallery-get-started

to make slideshows, but Photosynth had escaped my notice.

Really impressed with Autopano. I'll now start taking a lot more mosaic pix with these two packages in mind.

Isn't technology wonderful (sometimes!)

Rik