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Agisoft PhotoScan User Manual - Professional Edition, Version 1.2

1. 1 Place the markers in the scene at the locations to be used for distance measurement For information on marker placement please refer to the Setting coordinate system section of the manual 2 Select both markers to be used for distance measurements on the Reference pane using Ctrl button Select Eb Create Scale Bar command form the 3D view context menu The scale bar will be created and an instant added to the Scale Bar list on the Reference pane Switch to the estimated values mode using View Estimated button from the Reference pane toolbar 5 The estimated distance for the newly created scale bar equals to the distance that should have been measured To measure distance between cameras l Select the two cameras on the Workspace or Reference pane using Ctrl button Alternatively the cameras can be selected in the Model view window using selecting tools from the Toolbar Select Eb Create Scale Bar command form the context menu The scale bar will be created and an instant added to the Scale Bar list on the Reference pane Switch to the estimated values mode using toolbar View Estimated button from the Reference pane 4 The estimated distance for the newly created scale bar equals to the distance that should have been measured 4 Note E e Please note that the scale bar used for distance measurements must be unchecked on the Reference pane 48 Measurements 4 Note e The distance values measured by Photo
2. Editing mesh in the external program To export mesh for editing in the external program 1 Select Export Model command from the File menu 2 Inthe Save As dialog box specify the desired mesh format in the Save as type combo box Select the file name to be used for the model and click Save button 3 In the opened dialog box specify additional parameters specific to the selected file format Click OK button when done To import edited mesh 1 Select Import Mesh command from the Tools menu 2 Inthe Open dialog box browse to the file with the edited model and click Open 4 Note e PhotoScan supports loading models in Wavefront OBJ 3DS STL COLLADA Stanford PLY Autodesk FBX Autodesk DXF OpenCTM and U3D file formats only Please make sure to select one of these file formats when exporting model from the external 3D editor e Please be aware that it is important to keep reference information for the model if any Orthomosaic seamlines editing PhotoScan software offers various blending options at orthomosaic generation step for the user to adjust processing to their data and task However in some projects moving objects can cause artifacts which interfere with visual quality of the orthomosaic The same problem may result from oblique aerial imagery processing if the area of interest contains high buildings or if the user has captured facade from too oblique positions To eliminate mentioned artifacts PhotoScan offers seam
3. In this case PhotoScan will use the same interface for both clients and processing nodes with default port values Starting network nodes The processing node can be started by executing PhotoScan with the following command line arguments 74 Network processing photoscan node dispatch lt ip gt port root prefix node parameter specifies that PhotoScan should be started as a processing node dispatch parameter specifies IP of the server to connect In case port value is omitted the default port 5841 1s used root parameter can be used to specify network storage mount point or prefix path in case it 1s not the same across network Example photoscan node dispatch 10 0 1 1 This command will start processing node using 10 0 1 1 as a server IP with default port 5841 Checking cluster status Start Agisoft Network Monitor application In the host name field enter server IP used for client connections 10 0 1 1 in our example Modify port values in case non default port was specified Click Connect button when done A list of available network nodes currently connected to the server will be displayed in the bottom part of the window Please make sure that all started processing nodes are listed The top part lists tasks currently being processed finished tasks are removed from the list as soon as they are completed The task list will be empty if no processing was started yet Starting network processing
4. More complex editing can be done in the external 3D editing tools PhotoScan allows to export mesh and then import it back for this purpose i Note e For polygon removal operations such as manual removal and connected component filtering it is possible to undo the last mesh editing operation There are Undo Redo commands in the Edit menu Please note that undo redo commands are not supported for mesh decimation and this operation cannot be undone Decimation tool Decimation is a tool used to decrease the geometric resolution of the model by replacing high resolution mesh with a lower resolution one which is still capable of representing the object geometry with high accuracy PhotoScan tends to produce 3D models with excessive geometry resolution so mesh decimation is usually a desirable step after geometry computation Highly detailed models may contain hundreds of thousands polygons While it is acceptable to work with such a complex models in 3D editor tools in most conventional tools like Adobe Reader or Google Earth high complexity of 3D models may noticeably decrease application performance High complexity also results in longer time required to build texture and to export model in pdf file format In some cases it is desirable to keep as much geometry details as possible like it is needed for scientific and archive purposes However if there are no special requirements it is recommended to decimate the model down to 100 000
5. OpenCL acceleration PhotoScan supports accelerated depth maps reconstruction due to the graphics hardware GPU exploiting NVidia GeForce 8xxx series and later ATI Radeon HD 5xxx series and later PhotoScan is likely to be able to utilize processing power of any OpenCL enabled device during Dense Point Cloud generation stage provided that OpenCL drivers for the device are properly installed However because of the large number of various combinations of video chips driver versions and operating systems Agisoft is unable to test and guarantee PhotoScan s compatibility with every device and on every platform The table below lists currently supported devices on Windows platform only We will pay particular attention to possible problems with PhotoScan running on these devices Table 1 1 Supported Desktop GPUs on Windows platform NVIDIA AMD GeForce GTX Titan Radeon R9 290x GeForce GTX 980 Radeon HD 7970 GeForce GTX 780 Radeon HD 6970 GeForce GTX 680 Radeon HD 6950 GeForce GTX 380 Radeon HD 6870 Installation NVIDIA AMD GeForce GTX 570 Radeon HD 5870 GeForce GTX 360 Radeon HD 5850 GeForce GTX 480 Radeon HD 5830 GeForce GTX 470 GeForce GTX 465 GeForce GTX 285 GeForce GTX 280 Although PhotoScan is supposed to be able to utilize other GPU models and being run under a different operating system Agisoft does not guarantee that it will work correctly i Note e OpenCL acceleration can be enabled using OpenCL tab
6. Supported formats Interior and exterior camera orientation parameters Import camera positions Export camera positions Agisoft XML xml Agisoft XML xml BINGO dat Bundler out Bundler out CHAN files chan VisionMap Detailed Report txt Boujou txt Omega Phi Kappa txt PATB Exterior Orientation ptb BINGO Exterior Orientation dat AeroSys Exterior Orientation orn INPHO Project File prj Tie points Export matches BINGO dat Import not available ORIMA txt PATB ptb Sparse dense point cloud Export formats Wavefront OBJ obj Stanford PLY ply XYZ Point Cloud txt ASPRS LAS las LAZ laz Import not available ASTM E57 e57 ASCII PTS pts Universal 3D u3d potree zip Agisoft OC3 0c3 Topcon CL3 cl3 Adobe 3D PDF pdf Mesh model Import mesh Export mesh Wavefront OBJ obj Wavefront OBJ obj 92 Import mesh 3DS models 3ds COLLADA dae Stanford PLY ply STL models stl Autodesk DXF dxf Autodesk FBX fbx Universal 3D models u3d OpenCTM models Texture Import texture JPG TIFF PNG BMP OpenEXR PGM PPM Orthomosaic Import not available Import DEM GeoTIFF elevation tif Supported formats 93 Export mesh 3DS models 3ds COLLADA dae Stanford PLY ply STL models stl Autodesk DXF dxf Autodesk FBX fbx Universal 3D models u3d VRML models
7. if Configure Agisoft PhotoScan for network processing Start Agisoft PhotoScan on any computer connected to the cluster network Open Preferences dialog using Preferences command from the Tools menu On the Network tab make sure Enable network processing option is turned on and specify the server IP used for client connection in the Host name field In case non default port was configured on a server modify the port value accordingly In case you are going to process a few single frame chunks with large number of photos we recommend to enable fine level task distribution for all supported operations Match Photos Align Cameras Build Dense Cloud Build Tiled Model Build DEM Build Orthomosaic In case you are going to process a large number of small chunks or chunks with large number of frames fine level task distribution can be left in disabled state Press OK button when done Prepare project for network processing Open the project file to be processed Make sure that the project is saved in PhotoScan Project psx format Processing of projects in PhotoScan Archive psz format is not supported in network mode Important Please make sure that source images are located on shared network storage and not on a local hard drive Otherwise processing nodes will be unable to load them Start processing 75 Network processing Start processing using corresponding command from the Workflow menu or using Batch Process
8. consequently better visual quality of the final model Generic The default mode is the Generic mapping mode it allows to parametrize texture atlas for arbitrary geometry No assumptions regarding the type of the scene to be processed are made program tries to create as uniform texture as possible Adaptive orthophoto In the Adaptive orthophoto mapping mode the object surface is split into the flat part and vertical regions The flat part of the surface is textured using the orthographic projection while vertical regions are textured separately to maintain accurate texture representation in such regions When in the Adaptive orthophoto mapping mode program tends to produce more compact texture representation for nearly planar scenes while maintaining good texture quality for vertical surfaces such as walls of the buildings Orthophoto In the Orthophoto mapping mode the whole object surface is textured in the orthographic projection The Orthophoto mapping mode produces even more compact texture representation than the Adaptive orthophoto mode at the expense of texture quality in vertical regions Spherical Spherical mapping mode 1s appropriate only to a certain class of objects that have a ball like form It allows for continuous texture atlas being exported for this type of objects so that it is much easier to edit it later When generating texture in Spherical mapping mode it is crucial to set the Bounding box properly The whole model
9. e Number of blind zones should be minimized since PhotoScan is able to reconstruct only geometry visible from at least two cameras In case of aerial photography the overlap requirement can be put in the following figures 60 of side overlap 80 of forward overlap e Each photo should effectively use the frame size object of interest should take up the maximum area In some cases portrait camera orientation should be used e Do not try to place full object in the image frame if some parts are missing it is not a problem providing that these parts appear on other images e Good lighting is required to achieve better quality of the results yet blinks should be avoided It is recommended to remove sources of light from camera fields of view Avoid using flash e If you are planning to carry out any measurements based on the reconstructed model do not forget to locate at least two markers with a known distance between them on the object Alternatively you could place a ruler within the shooting area e In case of aerial photography and demand to fulfil georeferencing task even spread of ground control points GCPs at least 10 across the area to be reconstructed 1s required to achieve results of highest quality both in terms of the geometrical precision and georeferencing accuracy Yet Agisoft PhotoScan is able to complete the reconstruction and georeferencing tasks without GCPs too The following figures represent advice on approp
10. level using the slider You can observe how the selection changes while dragging the slider Click OK button to finalize the selection To remove selected points use Delete Selection command from the Edit menu or click A Delete Selection toolbar button or simply press Del button on the keyboard Filtering points based on applied masks To remove points based on applied masks oc b Switch to Dense Cloud view mode using 555 Dense Cloud toolbar button 2 Choose Select Masked Points command from the Dense Cloud submenu of the Tools menu 3 In the Select Masked Points dialog box indicate the photos whose masks to be taken into account Adjust the edge softness level using the slider Click OK button to run the selection procedure To remove selected points use Delete Selection command from the Edit menu or click x Delete Selection toolbar button or simply press Del button on the keyboard Filtering points based on points colors To remove points based on points colors ogg Switch to Dense Cloud view mode using 424 Dense Cloud toolbar button 58 Editing 2 Choose Select Points by Color command from the Dense Cloud submenu of the Tools menu 3 In the Select Points by Color dialog box the color to be used as the criterion Adjust the tolerance level using the slider Click OK button to run the selection procedure To remove selected points use Delete Selection command from the Edit menu or click X Delete Selection toolbar
11. see area value on the Planar tab and volume values on the Volume tab PhotoScan allows to measure volume above best fit mean level custom level planes Best fit and mean level planes are calculated based on the drawn polygon vertices Volume measured against custom level plane allows to trace volume changes for the same area in the course of time i Note e Measure option is available from the context menu of a selected polygon To select a polygon double click on it A selected polygon is coloured in red 50 Measurements Cross sections and contour lines PhotoScan enables to calculate cross sections using shapes to indicate the plane s for a cut s the cut being made with a plane parallel to Z axis For a polyline polygon the program will calculate profiles along all the edges starting from the first drawn side To calculate cross section i Indicate a line to make a cut of the model using Draw Polyline ju Draw Polygon tool from the Ortho view toolbar 2 Double click on the last point to indicate the end of a polyline 3 Right button click on the polyline polygon and select Measure command from the context menu 4 Inthe Measure Shape dialog inspect the results on the Profile tab of the dialog Generate Contours command is available either from DEM label context menu on the Workspace pane or from the Tools menu To generate contours 1 Select Generate Contours command from Tools menu 2 Inthe Genera
12. 200 000 polygons for exporting in PDF and to 100 000 or even less for displaying in Google Earth and alike tools To decimate 3D model 1 Select Decimate Mesh command from the Tools menu 2 Inthe Decimate Mesh dialog box specify the target number of polygons which should remain in the final model Click on the OK button to start decimation 3 The progress dialog box will appear displaying the current processing status To cancel processing click on the Cancel button 61 Editing i Note e Texture atlas is discarded during decimation process You will have to rebuild texture atlas after decimation is complete Close Holes tool Close Holes tool provides possibility to repair your model if the reconstruction procedure resulted in a mesh with several holes due to insufficient image overlap for example Some tasks require a continuous surface disregarding the fact of information shortage It is necessary to generate a close model for instance to fulfill volume measurement task with PhotoScan Close holes tool enables to close void areas on the model substituting photogrammetric reconstruction with extrapolation data It is possible to control an acceptable level of accuracy indicating the maximum size of a hole to be covered with extrapolated data To close holes in a 3D model 1 Select Close Holes command from the Tools menu 2 Inthe Close Holes dialog box indicate the maximum size of a hole to be covered with the
13. 4 The data will be loaded into the software Camera calibration data can be inspected in the Camera Calibration dialog Adjusted tab available from Tools menu If the input file contains some reference data camera position data in some coordinate system the data will be shown on the Reference pane View Estimated tab Camera data can be loaded in one of the following formats PhotoScan xml BINGO dat Bundler out VisionMap Detailed Report txt Realviz RZML rzml Once the data is loaded PhotoScan will offer to build point cloud This step involves feature points detection and matching procedures As a result a sparse point cloud 3D representation of the tie points data will be generated Build Point Cloud command is available from Tools Tie Points menu Parameters controlling Build Point Cloud procedure are the same as the ones used at Align Photos step see above Building dense point cloud PhotoScan allows to generate and visualize a dense point cloud model Based on the estimated camera positions the program calculates depth information for each camera to be combined into a single dense point cloud PhotoScan tends to produce extra dense point clouds which are of almost the same density if not denser as LIDAR point clouds A dense point cloud can be edited and classified within PhotoScan environment or exported to an external tool for further analysis To build a dense point cloud Check the reconstruction volume bound
14. 4302 to filter the systems To view the estimated geographic coordinates and reference errors switch between the View Estimated and View Errors modes respectively using View Estimated and View Errors toolbar buttons The 41 Referencing largest error will be highlighted A click on the column name on the Reference pane sorts the markers and photos by the data in the column At this point you can review the errors and decide whether additional refinement of marker locations is required in case of marker based referencing or if certain reference points should be excluded To save the errors and or estimated coordinates use Export toolbar button on the Reference pane To reset a chunk georeferencing use Reset Transform command from the chunk context menu on the Workspace pane R indicator of a chunk being georeferenced will be removed from the chunk name 4 Note e Unchecked reference points on the Reference pane are not used for georeferencing Use context menu to check uncheck selected items e After adjusting marker locations on the photos the coordinate system will not be updated automatically It should be updated manually using Ud Update toolbar button on the Reference pane e PhotoScan allows to convert the estimated geographic coordinates into a different coordinate system To calculate the coordinates of the camera positions and or markers in a different coordinate system use Convert toolbar button on t
15. Xare Vantadt Gu et e e e dd 93 Digital elevation model COSNY DTM Sarai 93 cd Mod cta 94 Shapes and Contou A A A A A 94 E Camera model an a E a E 95 Fraime Cameras ii asias 95 ise Ve cameras ota dl ial nancies nen dd 96 Spherical cameras equirectangular projection ooooocccconcnconcnnoncnnonconcnnoncnnoncononnoncnnoncnnoos 96 Spherical cameras cylindrical projection erreien nadaa a 96 1v Overview Agisoft PhotoScan is an advanced image based 3D modeling solution aimed at creating professional quality 3D content from still images Based on the latest multi view 3D reconstruction technology 1t operates with arbitrary images and is efficient in both controlled and uncontrolled conditions Photos can be taken from any position providing that the object to be reconstructed is visible on at least two photos Both image alignment and 3D model reconstruction are fully automated How it works Generally the final goal of photographs processing with PhotoScan is to build a textured 3D model The procedure of photographs processing and 3D model construction comprises four main stages 1 The first stage is camera alignment At this stage PhotoScan searches for common points on photographs and matches them as well as it finds the position of the camera for each picture and refines camera calibration parameters As a result a sparse point cloud and a set of camera positions are formed The sparse point cloud represents the results of pho
16. bar based optimization Scale bar is program representation of any known distance within the scene It can be a standard ruler or a specially prepared bar of a known length Scale bar is a handy tool to add supportive reference data to 44 Referencing your project They can prove to be useful when there is no way to locate ground control points all over the scene Scale bars allow to save field work time since it is significantly easier to place several scale bars with precisely known length then to measure coordinates of a few markers using special equipment In addition PhotoScan allows to place scale bar instances between cameras thus making it possible to avoid not only marker but ruler placement within the scene as well Surely scale bar based information will not be enough to set a coordinate system however the information can be successfully used while optimizing the results of photo alignment It will also be enough to perform measurements in PhotoScan software See Performing measurements on mesh To add a scale bar 1 Place markers at the start and end points of the bar For information on marker placement please refer to the Setting coordinate system section of the manual 2 Select both markers on the Reference pane using Ctrl button Select Eb Create Scale Bar command form the Model view context menu The scale bar will be created and an instant added to the Scale Bar list on the Reference pane Switch to the EA View Sou
17. be processed Then click Open button 3 Inthe Add Photos dialog select the suitable data layout For layout c above select Create multiframe cameras from files as cameras For layout d select Create multiframe cameras from files as frames 4 Created multiframe chunk will appear on the Workspace pane It is recommended to inspect the loaded frame sequence for errors This can be done by scrolling the frame selector in the Timeline pane and inspecting thumbnails in the Photos pane during scrolling After multiframe chunk is created it can be processed in the same way as normal chunks For multiframe chunks additional processing parameters allowing to select the range of frames to be processed will be provided where appropriate Tracking markers PhotoScan allows to automatically track marker projections through the frames sequence provided that object position doesn t change significantly between frames This greatly simplifies the task of labeling of a moving point if the number of frames is large To track markers through the frame sequence 1 Scroll frame selector in the Timeline pane to the 1st frame Add markers for the Ist frame as described in the Setting coordinate system section 2 Select Track Markers command from the Tools menu 3 Adjust the starting and ending frame indices if necessary Default values correspond to tracking from the current frame to the end of sequence Click OK button to start tracking Che
18. button on the Initial tab of the Camera Calibration dialog box In addition to Agisoft calibration calibration file format it is possible to import data from Australis PhotoModeler 3DM CalibCam CalCam Initial calibration data will be adjusted during the Align Photos processing step Once Align Photos processing step is finished adjusted calibration data will be displayed on the Adjusted tab of the Camera Calibration dialog box If very precise calibration data is available to protect it from recalculation one should check Fix calibration box In this case initial calibration data will not be changed during Align Photos process Adjusted camera calibration data can be saved to file using Save button on the Adjusted tab of the Camera Calibration dialog box Estimated camera distortions can be seen on the distortion plot available from context menu of a camera group in the Camera Calibration dialog In addition residulas graph the second tab of the same Distortion Plot dialog allows to evaluate how adequately the camera is described with the applied mathematical 36 Referencing model Note that residuals are averaged per cell of an image and then across all the images in a camera group Scale reference under the plot indicates the scale of the distortions residuals Calibration parameters list fx fy Focal length in x and y dimensions measured in pixels CX Cy Principal point coordinates 1 e coordinates of lens optical axis in
19. click Open button 2 Inthe Import CSV dialog set the coordinate system 1f the data presents geographical coordinates 3 Select the delimiter and indicate the number of the data column for each coordinate Indicate columns for the orientation data if present 4 Click OK button The reference coordinates data will be loaded onto the Reference pane L Note e In the data file columns and rows are numbered starting from 0 e If reference coordinates of a marker camera position for a photo are not specified in the loading file the current value will be kept for them e An example of a coordinates data file in the CSV format is given in the next section Information on the accuracy of the source coordinates x y z can be loaded with a CSV file as well Check Load Accuracy option and indicate the number of the column where the accuracy for the data should be read from The same figure will be tackled as accuracy information for all three coordinates To assign reference coordinates manually Switch to the View Source mode using EA View Source button from the Reference pane toolbar To open Reference pane use Reference command from the View menu 2 On the Reference pane double click on x y z cells to assign values to corresponding coordinates 3 Repeat for every marker camera position needed to be specified 4 Toremove unnecessary reference coordinates select corresponding items from the list and press Del key Click Ud Upda
20. command is inactive please make sure that the marker in question is selected on the Reference pane To place a marker using manual approach 1 Create marker instance using FBada marker button on the Workspace pane or by Add Marker command from the Chunk context menu available by right clicking on the chunk title on the Workspace pane 2 Open the photo where the marker projection needs to be added by double clicking on the photos name Switch to the marker editing mode using Al Edit Markers toolbar button 4 Right click at the point on the photo where the marker projection needs to be placed From the context menu open Place Marker submenu and select the marker instance previously created The marker projection will be added to the current photo 5 Repeat the previous step to place marker projections on other photos if needed 38 Referencing To save up time on manual marker placement procedure PhotoScan offers guiding lines feature When a marker is placed on an aligned photo PhotoScan highlights lines which the marker is expected to lie on on the rest of the aligned photos i Note e If a marker has been placed on at least two aligned images PhotoScan will find the marker A projections on the rest of the photos The calculated marker positions will be indicated with icon on the corresponding aligned photos in Photo View mode Automatically defined marker locations can be later refined manually by dragging their pr
21. corresponding data for each photo being processed The following tokens are supported filename file name of the source photo without extension fileext extension of the source photo camera camera label frame frame number filenum sequential number of the mask being exported For example filename _mask png template can be used to export masks in PNG format with _mask suffix 4 Note e When importing exporting mask for the current photo only PhotoScan will prompt for the actual image instead of image folder Mask file names parameter will not be used in this case Editing point cloud The following point cloud editing tools are available in PhotoScan e Automatic filtering based on specified criterion sparse cloud only e Automatic filtering based on applied masks dense cloud only e Automatic filtering based on points colours dense cloud only e Reducing number of points in cloud by setting tie point per photo limit sparse cloud only e Manual points removal 4 Note e Point cloud editing operation can be undone redone using Undo Redo command from the Edit menu Filtering points based on specified criterion In some cases it may be useful to find out where the points with high reprojection error are located within the sparse cloud or remove points representing high amount of noise Point cloud filtering helps to select such points which usually are supposed to be removed PhotoScan supports the
22. cy f tan Y sqrt X X Z Z where cx width 0 5 cy height 0 5 fx width 2 pi fy height pi 4 Note e Spherical equirectangular camera model doesn t support distortions All distortions should be corrected before loading images in PhotoScan e In case you are capturing panoramas with a rotated frame fisheye camera we recommend to process original images in PhotoScan using camera station function instead of stitching them in external software Spherical cameras cylindrical projection u c f tan X Z v Cy fy Y sqrt X X Z Z where 96 Camera models cx width 0 5 Cy height 0 5 fx width 2 pi fy width 2 pi 4 Note e Spherical cylindrical camera model doesn t support distortions All distortions should be corrected before loading images in PhotoScan e In case you are capturing panoramas with a rotated frame fisheye camera we recommend to process original images in PhotoScan using camera station function instead of stitching them in external software 97
23. e Bundler OUT file format e CHAN file format e Boujou TXT file format e Omega Phi Kappa text file format e PATB Exterior orientation e BINGO Exterior orientation e AeroSys Exterior orientation e Inpho project file 4 Note e Camera data export in Bundler and Boujou file formats will save sparse point cloud data in the same file e Camera data export in Bundler file format would not save distortion coefficients k3 k4 To export import only camera calibration data select Camera Calibration command from the Tools menu Using ES x 3 buttons it is possible to load save camera calibration data in the following formats 25 General workflow Agisoft Camera Calibration xml Australis Camera Parameters txt PhotoModeler Camera Calibration 1n1 3DM CalibCam Camera Parameters txt CalCam Camera Calibration cal Inpho Camera Calibration txt Panorama export PhotoScan is capable of panorama stitching for images taken from the same camera position camera station To indicate for the software that loaded images have been taken from one camera station one should move those photos to a camera group and assign Camera Station type to it For information on camera groups refer to Loading photos section To export panorama 1 Ze 3 6 Select Export Export Panorama command from the Tools menu Select camera group which panorama should be previewed for Choose panorama orientation in the fil
24. following criteria for point cloud filtering 57 Editing Reprojection error High reprojection error usually indicates poor localization accuracy of the corresponding point projections at the point matching step It is also typical for false matches Removing such points can improve accuracy of the subsequent optimization step Reconstruction uncertainty High reconstruction uncertainty is typical for points reconstructed from nearby photos with small baseline Such points can noticeably deviate from the object surface introducing noise in the point cloud While removal of such points should not affect the accuracy of optimization it may be useful to remove them before building geometry in Point Cloud mode or for better visual appearance of the point cloud Image count PhotoScan reconstruct all the points that are visible at least on two photos However points that are visible only on two photos are likely to be located with poor accuracy Image count filtering enables to remove such unreliable points from the cloud Projection Accuracy This criterion allows to filter out points which projections were relatively poorer localised due to their bigger size To remove points based on specified criterion s Switch to Point Cloud view mode using T Point Cloud toolbar button 2 Select Gradual Selection command from the Edit menu 3 Inthe Gradual Selection dialog box specify the criterion to be used for filtering Adjust the threshold
25. group was shot with a frame camera for successful estimation of camera orientation parameters the information on approximate focal length pix is required Obviously to calculate focal length value in pixel it is enough to know focal length in mm along with the sensor pixel size in mm Normally this data is extracted automatically from the EXIF metadata Frame camera with Fisheye lens If extra wide lenses were used to get the source data standard PhotoScan camera model will not allow to estimate camera parameters successfully Fisheye camera type setting will initialize implementation of a different camera model to fit ultra wide lens distortions Spherical camera equirectangular projection In case the source data within a calibration group was shot with a spherical camera camera type setting will be enough for the program to calculate 35 Referencing camera orientation parameters No additional information is required except the image in equirectangular representation Spherical camera Cylindrical projection In case the source data within a calibration group is a set of panoramic images stitched according to cylindrical model camera type setting will be enough for the program to calculate camera orientation parameters No additional information 1s required In case source images lack EXIF data or the EXIF data 1s insufficient to calculate focal length in pixels PhotoScan will assume that focal length equals to 50 mm 35 mm film equi
26. id A R S eeuatd 43 Working with coded and non coded targets oooococccconcnnoncnnoncononnoncnnoncononnnnonnoncononnonannos 46 AAA whet aa a a a a e AA A E 48 Pertormias messurements On mesi E a EE A 48 Pertormine measurements On DEM add a 49 Vestctation indices Calcula On ua SEAS AA 51 A A cea aaron teed 53 MIST mass alados 53 Edite MOM cloud sud dnd odian 57 Classifyins dense choud PONE esera r a A A N E 59 Eiun model CCOMEILY ad centrar als taa A 61 Orhomosaic seaim Mies edin idad 64 EN 66 Use ChuAks a Roo 66 AND process sd ti idas 70 A a aula ane die uaa saad nae S Ar 172 S NGIWO AA O EP A a eacues 73 OV CVC Wan AA E E 73 CUSTER COMPONENTS anie coer startet Cuneta rote a it raza 73 CIUSTCE SECU AEN E us E laces nai gtove en T tales doaey sau E E E E E N 74 AP AA O A R 76 111 Agisoft PhotoScan User Manual As Graphical User MedCaT ia T1 APDUCALON WING O Wa bs E E E ET slats del Menu CONTAMOS AS A RA A AA AE AA ieee Se 81 Toolbar Duon toa 86 FOL REVS lid bb 88 Be DUP DOE anal le ll ea 91 MATES SAA SNS A AA N 91 Camera Cara ON a 91 Camera PMSA 100 a tian aconue baa N 91 GECP TO AON caia 91 Interior and exterior camera Orientation parameters ooocococconcnconcnnoncnncncononnoncnnonnononnoncnnoos 92 A A E PU A Nad ermine wate Gants 92 Sparse dense pomt cloud eii Ss 92 Yo e EE E A T E relent ies cantata ate gee E ahaa can aaa ta beaut 92 TEXTE AA Planned A oleae at tend anaes satan enda ees 93 ORINOMOS AIC
27. left unchanged during chunks alignment process Preselect image pairs Point based alignment only The alignment process of many chunks may take a long time A significant portion of this time is spent for matching of detected features across the photos Image pair preselection option can speed up this process by selection of a subset of image pairs to be matched Constrain features by mask Point based alignment only When this option is enabled features detected in the masked image regions are discarded For additional information on the usage of masks refer to the Using masks section 4 Note e Chunk alignment can be performed only for chunks containing aligned photos e There is no need to perform chunk alignment for georeferenced chunks as they are already in the same coordinate frame Merging chunks After alignment is complete the separate chunks can be merged into a single chunk To merge chunks 1 Select Merge Chunks command from the Workflow menu 2 Inthe Merge Chunks dialog box select chunks to be merged and the desired merging options Click OK button when done 3 PhotoScan will merge the separate chunks into one The merged chunk will be displayed in the project content list on Workspace pane The following parameters control the chunks merging procedure and can be modified in the Merge Chunks dialog box Merge dense clouds Defines if dense clouds from the selected chunks are combined Merge models Defines i
28. on the estimated camera parameters available Thins sparse point cloud by reducing the number of projections on the individual photos to the given limit Classifies dense point cloud based on the user defined settings Graphical user interface Tools Menu Assign Class Reset Classification Select Points by Masks Select Points by Color Decimate Mesh Smooth Mesh Close Holes View Mesh Statistics View Mesh UVs Measure Area and Volume Generate Contours Import Cameras Import Markers Import Masks Import Shapes Import Mesh Import Texture Import DEM Export Cameras Export Markers Export Masks Export Matches Export Shapes Export Contours Export Texture Export Panorama 84 Assigns class to the selected points Resets assigned classes Selects dense cloud points according to the masked images Selects dense cloud points according to the color and tolerance Decimates mesh to the target face count Smoothes mesh Closes holes on the model surface Collects and displays mesh statistics Displays mesh UV mapping Displays surface area and volume of the model Generates contours based on DEM according to the elevation levels Imports camera positions and orientation data Imports marker projections Imports masks or creates mask from model or background Imports shapes to be used for editing measurements i
29. only to generate and visualize dense point cloud but also to classify the points within it There are two options automatic division of all the points into two classes ground points and the rest and manual selection of a group of points to be placed in a certain class from the standard list known for LIDAR data Dense cloud points classification opens way to customize Build Mesh step you can choose what type of objects within the scene you would like to be reconstructed and indicate the corresponding point class as a source data for mesh generation For example if you build mesh based on ground points only 1t will be possible to export DTM as opposed to DSM at the next step Automatic classification of ground points For the user to avoid extra manual work PhotoScan offers feature for automatic detection of ground points 59 Editing To classify ground points automatically 1 Select Classify Ground Points command from the Dense Cloud submenu of the Tools menu 2 Inthe Classify Ground Points dialog box select the source point data for the classification procedure Click OK button to run the classification procedure Automatic classification procedure consists of two steps At the first step the dense cloud is divided into cells of a certain size In each cell the lowest point is detected Triangulation of these points gives the first approximation of the terrain model At the second step new point is added to the ground class prov
30. operation Redo the previously undone mask editing operation Switches to the navigation mode Rectangle selection tool Intelligent scissors tool Intelligent paint tool Magic wand tool Adds current selection to the mask Subtracts current selection from the mask Inverts current selection Rotates the photo clockwise Rotates the photo counterclockwise Increases magnification Decreases magnification Adjusts image brightness for more convenient display Turns mask shading on or off Switches to marker editing mode Graphical user interface Photo view commands o0 y oo View Points 4 Reset View Ortho view commands 3 Navigation oe Draw Point A Draw Polyline 4 Draw Polygon W DEM Orthomosaic Epi Raster Calculator Ud Update Orthomosaic El Zoom In 4 Zoom Out D set Brightness aed w Show Seamlines RY Show Shapes rs fers u Show Contour Lines Eb Show Markers sir O4 Reset View Hot keys General Create new project Save project Load project Full Screen 88 Shows hides feature points used for alignment of the photo Resets the viewport to display the whole photo Switches to the navigation mode Switches to the point drawing tool Switches to the polyline drawing tool Switches to the polygon drawing tool Switches to the digital elevation model display mode Switches to the orthomosaic display mode Opens Raster Calculator dialog for NV
31. option 79 Graphical user interface e Switch between images and masks thumbnails e Increase decrease icons size or display detailed information on photos including EXIF data Console pane Console pane is used for e Displaying auxiliary information e Displaying error messages e Python commands input Buttons located on the pane toolbar allow e Save log e Clear log e Execute Python script Reference pane Reference pane is designed for e Displaying camera and or marker coordinates e Displaying scale bars lengths e Displaying camera orientations e Displaying estimation errors Buttons located on the pane toolbar allow e Import export reference coordinates e Convert reference coordinates from one system to the other e Optimize camera alignment and update data e Switch between source coordinates estimated coordinates and errors views e Specify the coordinate system and measurement accuracy to be assumed through Settings dialog Timeline pane Timeline pane is designed for e Working with multi frame chunks Buttons located on the pane toolbar allow e Add remove frames from chunk e Play stop frame sequence e Adjust frame rate through Settings dialog 80 Graphical user interface 4 Note e To open any pane select a corresponding command from the View menu Menu commands File Menu E New ES Open Append Fa Save Save As Export Points Export Model Export Tiled Mod
32. slider Click on the OK button to start the procedure 3 The progress dialog box will appear displaying the current processing status To cancel processing click on the Cancel button 4 Note e The slider allows to set the size of a hole in relation to the size of the whole model surface Polygon filtering on specified criterion In some cases reconstructed geometry may contain the cloud of small isolated mesh fragments surrounding the main model or big unwanted polygons Mesh filtering based on different criteria helps to select polygons which usually are supposed to be removed PhotoScan supports the following criteria for face filtering Connected component size This filtering criteria allows to select isolated fragments with a certain number of polygons The number of polygons in all isolated components to be selected is set with a slider and is indicated in relation to the number of polygons in the whole model The components are ranged in size so that the selection proceeds from the smallest component to the largest one Polygon size This filtering criteria allows to select polygons up to a certain size The size of the polygons to be selected is set with a slider and is indicated in relation to the size of the whole model This function can be useful for example in case the geometry was reconstructed in Smooth type and there is a need to remove extra polygons automatically added by PhotoScan to fill the gaps these polygons are o
33. starting a project with PhotoScan it is recommended to adjust the program settings for your needs In Preferences dialog General Tab available through the Tools menu you can indicate the path to the PhotoScan log file to be shared with the Agisoft support team in case you face any problem during the processing Here you can also change GUI language to the one that is most convenient for you The options are English Chinese French German Japanese Portuguese Russian Spanish On the OpenCL Tab you need to make sure that all OpenCL devices detected by the program are checked PhotoScan exploits GPU processing power that speeds up the process significantly If you have decided to switch on GPUs for photogrammetric data processing with PhotoScan it is recommended to free one physical CPU core per each active GPU for overall control and resource managing tasks Loading photos Before starting any operation it is necessary to point out what photos will be used as a source for 3D reconstruction In fact photographs themselves are not loaded into PhotoScan until they are needed So when you load photos you only indicate photographs that will be used for further processing To load a set of photos Select Add Photos command from the Workflow menu or click Tre Add Photos toolbar button on the Workspace pane General workflow 2 In the Add Photos dialog box browse to the folder containing the images and select files to be processed Then
34. the resulting DEM calculated with respect to the ground resolution is presented in Total size textbox Building orthomosaic Orthomosaic export is normally used for generation of high resolution imagery based on the source photos and reconstructed model The most common application is aerial photographic survey data processing but it may be also useful when a detailed view of the object is required PhotoScan enables to perform orthomosaic seamline editing for better visual results see Orthomosaic seamlines editing section of the manual For multispectral imagery processing workflow Ortho view tab presents Raster Calculator tool for NDVI and other vegetation indices calculation to analyze crop problems and generate prescriptions for variable rate farming equipment More information on NDVI calculation functionality can be found in Performing measurements on mesh section 4 Note e Build Orthomosaic procedure can be performed only for projects saved in PSX format To build Orthomosaic 1 Select the Build Orthomosaic command from the Workflow menu 2 Inthe Build Orthomosaic dialog box set Coordinate system for the Orthomosaic referencing 3 Select type of surface data for orthorectified imagery to be projected onto 4 Click OK button when done 5 The progress dialog box will appear displaying the current processing status To cancel processing click Cancel button PhotoScan allows to project the orthomosaic onto a plane set b
35. the camera view 1s almost along the normal to the reconstructed surface in that point Average uses the weighted average value of all pixels from individual photos the weight being dependent on the same parameters that are considered for high frequence component in mosaic mode Max Intensity the photo which has maximum intensity of the corresponding pixel is selected Min Intensity the photo which has minimum intensity of the corresponding pixel is selected Disabled the photo to take the color value for the pixel from is chosen like the one for the high frequency component in mosaic mode Texture size count Specifies the size width amp height of the texture atlas in pixels and determines the number of files for texture to be exported to Exporting texture to several files allows to archive greater resolution of the final model texture while export of high resolution texture to a single file can fail due to RAM limitations Additionally the following advanced parameters can be adjusted Enable color correction The feature is useful for processing of data sets with extreme brightness variation However please note that color correction process takes up quite a long time so it is recommended to enable the setting only for the data sets that proved to present results of poor quality i Note e HDR texture generation requires HDR photos on input Improving texture quality To improve resulting texture quality it may be
36. the photos Image pair preselection option may speed up this process due to selection of a subset of image pairs to be matched In the Generic preselection mode the overlapping pairs of photos are selected by matching photos using lower accuracy setting first In the Reference preselection mode the overlapping pairs of photos are selected based on the measured camera locations if present For oblique imagery it is necessary to set Ground altitude value average ground height in the same coordinate system which 1s set for camera coordinates data in the Settings dialog of the Reference pane to make the preselection procedure work efficiently Ground altitude information must be accompanied with yaw pitch roll data for cameras Yaw pitch roll data should be input in the Reference pane Additionally the following advanced parameters can be adjusted Key point limit The number indicates upper limit of feature points on every image to be taken into account during current processing stage Using zero value allows PhotoScan to find as many key points as possible but it may result in a big number of less reliable points Tie point limit The number indicates upper limit of matching points for every image Using zero value doesn t apply any tie point filtering Constrain features by mask When this option is enabled masked areas are excluded from feature detection procedure For additional information on the usage of masks please refer to the Using ma
37. to the parameters specified in Preferences dialog Resets the viewport to display model fully in Top XY projection Graphical user interface View Menu E Workspace Timeline pe Reference Photos Console Toolbar Workflow Menu ire Add Photos E Add Folder Align Photos Build Dense Cloud Build Mesh Build Texture Build Tiled Model Build DEM Build Orthomosaic Align Chunks Merge Chunks Batch Process Tools Menu Detect Markers Track Markers Print Markers Build Point Cloud Thin Point Cloud Classify Ground Points 83 Shows or hides Workspace pane Shows or hides Timeline pane Shows or hides Reference pane Shows or hides Photos pane Shows or hides Console pane Shows or hides Toolbar Loads additional photos to be processed by PhotoScan Loads additional photos from folders to be processed by PhotoScan Generates camera positions and sparse point cloud Generates dense point cloud Generates polygonal model Generates 3D model texture Generates tiled textured model from the dense cloud Generates digital elevation model Generates orthomosaic Aligns multiple chunks Merges multiple chunks into the single chunk Opens Batch Process dialog box Creates markers from coded targets on photos Tracks marker locations across the frame sequence Generates printable PDF file with coded targets Builds sparse point cloud based
38. too large to be processed at a time To overcome this difficulty PhotoScan offers a possibility to split the set of photos into several separate chunks within the same project Alignment of photos building dense point cloud building mesh and forming texture atlas operations can be performed for each chunk separately and then resulting 3D models can be combined together Working with chunks is not more difficult than using PhotoScan following the general workflow In fact in PhotoScan always exists at least one active chunk and all the 3D model processing workflow operations are applied to this chunk To work with several chunks you need to know how to create chunks and how to combine resulting 3D models from separate chunks into one model Creating a chunk To create new chunk click on the Add Chunk toolbar button on the Workspace pane or select Add Chunk command from the Workspace context menu available by right clicking on the root element on the Workspace pane After the chunk is created you may load photos in it align them generate dense point cloud generate mesh surface model build texture atlas export the models at any stage and so on The models in the chunks are not linked with each other The list of all the chunks created in the current project is displayed in the Workspace pane along with flags reflecting their status The following flags can appear next to the chunk name R Referenced Notifies that 3D model in the c
39. view tab is used for displaying 3D data as well as for mesh and point cloud editing The view of the model depends on the current processing stage and is also controlled by mode selection buttons on the PhotoScan toolbar Model can be shown as a dense cloud with class indication or without or as a mesh in shaded solid wireframe or textured mode Along with the model the results of photo alignment can be displayed These T11 Graphical user interface include sparse point cloud and camera positions visualised data Additionally tiled textured model can be displayed and navigated in the model view PhotoScan supports the following tools for navigation in the 3D view Tool Keyboard modifier Rotation Tool Default Pan Tool Ctrl key pressed Zooming Tool Shift key pressed All navigation tools are accessible in the navigation mode only To enter the navigation mode click the s Navigation toolbar button PhotoScan offers two different navigation modes Object navigation and Terrain navigation Switching between the navigation modes can be performed from the Navigation Mode submenu of the View menu Object navigation mode allows for 3 axis rotation control while Terrain navigation mode restricts control to 2 axis rotation only z axis being kept vertical all the time In Object navigation mode the rotation with mouse can be performed while left mouse button 1s pressed whereas holding right mouse button allows for model tilt In Terrain na
40. wrl Adobe 3D PDF pdf Export texture JPG TIFF PNG BMP OpenEXR PGM PPM Export orthomosaic GeoTIFF JPG PNG Google Earth KML KMZ Google Map Tiles MBTiles World Wind Tiles Digital elevation model DSM DTM Export DEM GeoTIFF elevation tif Arc Info ASCII Grid asc Band interleaved file format bil XYZ xyZ Sputnik KMZ kmz Supported formats Tiled models Import not available Shapes and contours Import shapes Shape Files shp DXF Files dxf KML files kml 94 Export tiles Agisoft Tiled Model tls PhotoMesh Layer zip Agisoft Tile Archive zip Export shapes contours Shape Files shp DXF Files dxf KML Files kml Appendix C Camera models Agisoft PhotoScan supports several parametric lens distortion models Specific model which approximates best a real distortion field must be selected before processing All models assume a central projection camera Non linear distortions are modeled using Brown s distortion model A camera model specifies the transformation from point coordinates in the local camera coordinate system to the pixel coordinates in the image frame The local camera coordinate system has origin at the camera projection center The Z axis points towards the viewing direction X axis points to the right Y axis points down The image coordinate system has origin at the top left image pixel with the center of the top left pixel h
41. 57 LAS LAZ OC3 CL3 and TXT file formats e Saving point normals information is supported by the OBJ PLY and TXT file formats Tie points data export To export matching points 1 2 Select Export Matches command from the Tools menu Browse the destination folder choose the file type and print in the file name Click Save button 24 General workflow 3 Inthe Export Matches dialog box set export parameters Precision value sets the limit to the number of decimal digits in the tie points coordinates to be saved 4 Click OK button to start export 5 The progress dialog box will appear displaying the current processing status To cancel processing click Cancel button PhotoScan supports matching points data export in the following formats e BINGO dat saves original intrinsic and extrinsic camera data along with matching points coordinates e ORIMA txt e PATB ptb Matching points exported from PhotoScan can be used as a basis for AT procedure to be performed in some external software Later on estimated camera data can be imported back to PhotoScan using Import Cameras command from the Tools menu to proceed with 3D model reconstruction procedure Camera calibration and orientation data export To export camera calibration and camera orientation data select Export Cameras command from the Tools menu PhotoScan supports camera data export in the following formats e Agisoft XML structure
42. Agisoft PhotoScan User Manual Professional Edition Version 1 2 Agisoft PhotoScan User Manual Professional Edition Version 1 2 Publication date 2015 Copyright O 2015 Agisoft LLC Table of Contents OVETVIEW dead Vv FOMI WOKS 525 ti dating neces ii a el iii Vv PAOOUL Me mantas E Vv SAA E A o l Ss AAA II O A l OpenGL accord a E tes ouneuteauauaminent aes l Installation procedure di a ia A a e EA 2 Restrictions at the Demo mode 2 228 nici O Ae 2 DC IPOE PHOTOS taa atacada deco 4 AAA ea tousssoncdiese paces pyle iad cide can puneneacen tasame pylGa tana ios Sua aunenea pre EAA 4 Camera sedes dida elena secede serials trea ode a cana tidad 4 ODIECU SCENE TE GUI Re MES E 4 Mage PIC PEOCCSSING retador za lor a 4 Caprin SCCO rada cs 5 Resta to a io dedico dass 6 Je General WOLK EOW a A A nudes poduain ES 8 Pret renees S ONES cara ta l ri ra tii a EAT 8 TsO adi PAS ind ds dd a ies 8 IS ots enimteretiante enn ei geide ete ea dade tetas rete in acide Greer dade ENAA 12 Butidine dense point Cloud escenes A AAA AA ES 14 B ldino Mes recia rito tiles 15 Butidino model texte dos 17 B ldino ted model spirit diodo ds ria se taes 19 Bulldine dioital elevaci n Mod nr A E Maenekesualnacdieue 20 Bulidino OMNOMOSAlC stan tadas tt ween aM coe das ie 21 Saville mermediate tests ad sii 22 ExXpotrtino results saria E a a a E E A A 23 A REFON O E a E E a enue 35 Camera cabra Oni a ds T E T 35 Selina coordinatle Usted cta 37 OPUMIIZ AO cc E
43. Click OK button when done When generating masks from separate or background images the folder selection dialog will appear Browse to the folder containing corresponding images and select it The progress dialog box will appear displaying the current processing status To cancel processing click Cancel button The following parameters can be specified during mask import Import masks for Specifies whether masks should be imported for the currently opened photo active chunk or entire Workspace Current photo load mask for the currently opened photo if any Active chunk load masks for active chunk Entire workspace load masks for all chunks in the project Method Specifies the source of the mask data From Alpha load masks from alpha channel of the source photos From File load masks from separate images From Background generate masks from background photos From Model generate masks based on reconstructed model 54 Editing Mask file names not used in From alpha mode Specifies the file name template used to generate mask file names This template can contain special tokens that will be substituted by corresponding data for each photo being processed The following tokens are supported filename file name of the source photo without extension fileext extension of the source photo camera camera label frame frame number filenum sequential number of the mask being importe
44. DI and other vegetation indices calculation Applies all the manual edits to the orthomosaic Increases the magnification of the image in the Ortho view Decreases the magnification of the image in the Ortho view Adjusts image brightness for more convenient display Displays or hides orthomosaic seamlines Displays or hides shapes drawn on the orthomosaic or elevation model Displays or hides contour lines Displays or hides marker positions Resets the viewport for optimal zoom level of the image in the Ortho view Ctrl N Ctrl S Ctrl O F11 Graphical user interface Model View Undo only for Delete Assign Class Classify Ground Points Masking and Close Holes operations Redo only for Delete Assign Class Classify Ground Points Masking and Close Holes operations Switch between navigation and any other previously selected mode Reset view Switch to stereoview mode Switch between orthographic and perspective view modes Change the angle for perspective view Assign dense cloud class only if some points are selected Predefined Views Top Bottom Right Left Front Back Rotate View Rotate Up Rotate Down Rotate Left Rotate Right Photo View Next photo according to Photos pane order Previous photo according to Photos pane order Go to the next marker on the same photo Go to the previous marker on the same photo Navigation mode Selection Tools Rectangle selection I
45. Scan are displayed in meters Surface area and volume measurement Surface area or volume measurements of the reconstructed 3D model can be performed only after the scale or coordinate system of the scene 1s defined For instructions on setting coordinate system please refer to the Setting coordinate system section of the manual To measure surface area and volume 1 Select Measure Area and Volume command from the Tools menu 2 The whole model surface area and volume will be displayed in the Measure Area and Volume dialog box Surface area 1s measured in square meters while mesh volume is measured in cubic meters Volume measurement can be performed only for the models with closed geometry If there are any holes in the model surface PhotoScan will report zero volume Existing holes in the mesh surface can be filled in before performing volume measurements using Close Holes command from the Tools menu Performing measurements on DEM PhotoScan is capable of DEM based point distance area and volume measurements as well as of generating cross sections for a part of the scene selected by the user Additionally contour lines can be calculated for the model and depicted either over DEM or Orthomosaic in Ortho view within PhotoScan environment Measurements on the DEM are controlled with shapes points polylines and polygons Shapes Shapes are used to indicate boundaries either for DEM Orthomosaic export or for the measurement procedu
46. and from the File menu 2 Browse the destination folder choose the file type and print in the file name Click Save button 23 General workflow In the Export Points dialog box select desired Type of point cloud Sparse or Dense Specify the coordinate system and indicate export parameters applicable to the selected file type including the dense cloud classes to be saved Click OK button to start export The progress dialog box will appear displaying the current processing status To cancel processing click Cancel button Split in blocks option in the Export Points dialog can be useful for exporting large projects It is available for referenced models only You can indicate the size of the section in xy plane in meters for the point cloud to be divided into respective rectangular blocks The total volume of the 3D scene is limited with the Bounding Box The whole volume will be split in equal blocks starting from the point with minimum x and y values Note that empty blocks will not be saved In some cases it may be reasonable to edit point cloud before exporting it To read about point cloud editing refer to the Editing point cloud section of the manual PhotoScan supports point cloud export in the following formats Wavefront OBJ Stanford PLY XYZ text file format ASPRS LAS LAZ ASTM E57 U3D potree Agisoft OC3 Topcon CL3 PDF i Note e Saving color information of the point cloud is supported by the PLY E
47. appear displaying the current processing status To cancel processing click Cancel button PhotoScan processing report presents the following data e Orthomosaic sketch e Survey data including coverage area flying altitude GSR general camera s info as well as overlap statistics 31 General workflow e Camera calibration results figures and an illustration for every sensor involved in the project e Camera positioning error estimates e Ground control points error estimates e Scale bars estimated distances and measurement errors e Digital elevation model sketch with resolution and point density info e Processing parameters used at every stage of the project i Note e Processing report can be exported after alignment step Processing report export option is available for georeferenced projects only Survey Data Number of images total number of images uploaded into the project Camera stations number of aligned images Flying altitude average height above ground level Tie points total number of valid tie points equals to the number of points in the sparse cloud Ground resolution effective ground resolution averaged over all aligned images Projections total number of projections of valid tie points Coverage area size of the area that has been surveyed Reprojection error root mean square reprojection error averaged over all tie points on all images Reprojection error is the distance betwee
48. aptured with fisheye lens appropriate camera sensor type should be selected in PhotoScan Camera Calibration dialog prior to processing e Fixed lenses are preferred If zoom lenses are used focal length should be set either to maximal or to minimal value during the entire shooting session for more stable results Camera settings e Using RAW data losslessly converted to the TIFF files is preferred since JPG compression induces unwanted noise to the images e Take images at maximal possible resolution e ISO should be set to the lowest value otherwise high ISO values will induce additional noise to images e Aperture value should be high enough to result in sufficient focal depth it is important to capture sharp not blurred photos e Shutter speed should not be too slow otherwise blur can occur due to slight movements Object scene requirements e Avoid not textured shiny mirror or transparent objects e If still have to shoot shiny objects under a cloudy sky e Avoid unwanted foregrounds e Avoid moving objects within the scene to be reconstructed e Avoid absolutely flat objects or scenes Image preprocessing e PhotoScan operates with the original images So do not crop or geometrically transform 1 e resize or rotate the images Capturing photos Capturing scenarios Generally spending some time planning your shot session might be very useful e Number of photos more than required is better than not enough
49. aving coordinates 0 5 0 5 The X axis in the image coordinate system points to the right Y axis points down Image coordinates are measured in pixels Equations used to project a points in the local camera coordinate system to the image plane are provided below for each supported camera model The following definitions are used in the equations X Y Z point coordinates in the local camera coordinate system u V projected point coordinates in the image coordinate system in pixels fx fy focal lengths Cx Cy principal point coordinates K Ko Ka Kg radial distortion coefficients P1 Po P3 P4 tangential distortion coefficients skew skew coefficient between the x and the y axis width image width in pixels height image height in pixels Frame cameras x X Z y Y Z r sqrt x y x x 1 K r K r Kar Kar P gt r7 2x 2P xy 1 Par Par y y l K r Kir Kar Kar P 17 2y 2Poxy 1 Par Par u Cx x f y skew vV Cy yf 95 Camera models Fisheye cameras x X Z vo Y Z ro sqrt Xo yo X0 tan tro Yo y yo tan rp Yo r sqrt x yo x x l1 K r Kor K3r Kar P gt 17 2x7 2P xy 1 Par Pyr y y l K r Kor K3r Kar P 17 2y 2Poxy 1 Par Par u Cx X y skew vV Cy yy Spherical cameras equirectangular projection u c f tan X Z v
50. button or simply press Del button on the keyboard Tie point per photo limit Tie point limit parameter could be adjusted before Align photos procedure The number indicates the upper limit for matching points for every image Using zero value doesn t apply any tie point filtering The number of tie points can also be reduced after the alignment process with Tie Points Thin Point Cloud command available from Tools menu As a results sparse point cloud will be thinned yet the alignment will be kept unchanged Manual points removal Incorrect points can be also removed manually To remove points from a point cloud manually L l _ Ba l Switch to Sparse Cloud view mode using 99 Point Cloud toolbar button or to Dense Cloud view ooo mode using 555 Dense Cloud toolbar button 2 i E le al Select points to be removed using t Rectangle Selection Circle Selection or Free Form Selection tools To add new points to the current selection hold the Ctrl key during selection of additional points To remove some points from the current selection hold the Shift key during selection of points to be removed 3 To delete selected points click the x Delete Selection toolbar button or select Delete Selection command from the Edit menu To crop selection to the selected points click the y Crop Selection toolbar button or select Crop Selection command from the Edit menu Classifying dense cloud points PhotoScan allows not
51. cameras in a chunk using Invert Masks command from a photo context menu on the Photos pane The masks are generated individually for each image If some object should be masked out 1t should be masked out on all photos where that object appears Saving masks Created masks can be also saved for external editing or storage To export masks l Select Export Masks command from the Tools menu 2 Inthe Export Mask dialog select suitable parameters Click OK button when done 3 Browse to the folder where the masks should be saved and select it 4 The progress dialog box will appear displaying the current processing status To cancel processing click Cancel button The following parameters can be specified during mask export Export masks for Specifies whether masks should be exported for the currently opened photo active chunk or entire Workspace Current photo save mask for the currently opened photo if any Active chunk save masks for active chunk Entire workspace save masks for all chunks in the project File type Specifies the type of generated files 56 Editing Single channel mask image generates single channel black and white mask images Image with alpha channel generates color images from source photos combined with mask data in alpha channel Mask file names Specifies the file name template used to generate mask file names This template can contain special tokens that will be substituted by
52. ck tracked marker locations Automatically tracked markers will be indicated with plo icons In case of a placement error at some frame adjust the wrong marker location within the frame where the failure occurred Once the marker location is refined by user the marker icon will change to An 5 Restart tracking from that frame using Track Markers command again 4 Note e If the ending frame index is smaller than the starting index tracking will be performed in the backwards direction 71 Automation e Automatic marker tracking is likely to fail in case when structured light is used to add texture details to the object surface as the light pattern will not be static with respect to the moving object surface Python scripting PhotoScan supports Python API using Python 3 3 as a scripting engine Python commands and scripts can be executed in PhotoScan through one of the following options e PhotoScan Console pane can serve as standard Python console Click 4 Run Script button on Console pane toolbar or use 4 Run Script command from the Tools menu to run a Python script For details on PhotoScan functionality accessible through Python scripts please refer to Python API Reference document available on Agisoft official website http www agisoft com downloads user manuals 72 Chapter 8 Network processing Overview Agisoft PhotoScan can be configured to run on a computer cluster where processing 1s distributed
53. click Open button 3 Selected photos will appear on the Workspace pane 4 Note e PhotoScan accepts the following image formats JPEG TIFF PNG BMP PPM OpenEXR and JPEG Multi Picture Format MPO Photos in any other format will not be shown in the Add Photos dialog box To work with such photos you will need to convert them in one of the supported formats If you have loaded some unwanted photos you can easily remove them at any moment To remove unwanted photos 1 On the Workspace pane select the photos to be removed 2 Right click on the selected photos and choose Remove Items command from the opened context menu or click X Remove Items toolbar button on the Workspace pane The selected photos will be removed from the working set Camera groups If all the photos or a subset of photos were captured from one camera position camera station for PhotoScan to process them correctly it is obligatory to move those photos to a camera group and mark the group as Camera Station It is important that for all the photos in a Camera Station group distances between camera centers were negligibly small compared to the camera object minimal distance 3D model reconstruction will require at least two camera stations with overlapping photos to be present in a chunk However it is possible to export panoramic picture for the data captured from only one camera station Refer to Exporting results section for guidance on panorama export Alter
54. command to execute a command sequence A network progress dialog should appear displaying current progress 4 Wait for processing to complete You can disconnect from the server at any time using Disconnect button in the Network Progress dialog in case you need to work on other projects Processing will continue in the background To see processing status after you have disconnected from the server simply open corresponding psx project on the network storage Alternatively you can use Agisoft Network Monitor to see processing status for all projects being processed 5 Inspect processing results After processing is finished click Close button to close Network Progress dialog The project with processing results will be displayed in PhotoScan window Cluster administration Adding processing nodes New processing nodes can be added by starting Agisoft PhotoScan on additional computers in the network node mode as outlined in the Starting network nodes section above Removing processing nodes Aborting or disconnecting processing node during cluster operation is not absolutely safe and can lead to project corruption if performed during final project update at the end of processing Although the chances of this situation are relatively low we strongly recommend against such approach To safely disconnect processing node from the cluster you need to stop processing on this node using Agisoft Network Monitor first 1 Start Agisoft Net
55. cribed above Si Click 4 Settings button on the Reference pane toolbar 3 In the Reference Settings dialog box select the Coordinate System used to compile reference coordinates data 1f 1t has not been set at the previous step 4 Specify the assumed measurement accuracy 5 Indicate relative camera to GPS system coordinates if present in Camera Correction section of the Reference Settings dialog box 6 Click OK button to initialize the coordinate system and estimate geographic coordinates Rotation angles in PhotoScan are defined around the following axes yaw axis runs from top to bottom pitch axis runs from left to right wing of the drone roll axis runs from tail to nose of the drone Zero values of the rotation angle triple define the following camera position aboard camera looks down to the ground frames are taken in landscape orientation and horizontal axis of the frame is perpendicular to the central tail nose axis of the drone If the camera is fixed in a different position respective yaw pitch roll values should be input in the camera correction section of the Settings dialog The senses of the angles are defined according to the right hand rule 4 Note e Step 5 can be safely skipped if you are using standard GPS system not that of superhigh precision In Select Coordinate System dialog it is possible to ease searching for the required georeferencing system using Filter option Enter respective EPSG code e g EPSG
56. d For example filename _mask png template can be used if masks are available in PNG format and have a_mask suffix Tolerance From Background method only Editing Specifies the tolerance threshold used for background differencing Tolerance value should be set according to the color separation between foreground and background pixels For larger separation higher tolerance values can be used masks Modification of the current mask is performed by adding or subtracting selections A selection is created with one of the supported selection tools and is not incorporated in the current mask until it is merged with a mask using Add Selection or Subtract Selection operations To edit the mask 1 Open the photo to be masked by double clicking on its name on the Workspace Photo pane The photo will be opened in the main window The existing mask will be displayed as a shaded region on the photo Select the desired selection tool and generate a selection Click on Add Selection toolbar button to add current selection to the mask or i Subtract Selection to subtract the selection from the mask Invert Selection button allows to invert current selection prior to adding or subtracting it from the mask The following tools can be used for creating selections r L Rectangle selection tool 5 Rectangle selection tool is used to select large areas or to clean up the mask after other selection tools were ap
57. d However PhotoScan allows for the different geoid models utilization as well PhotoScan installation package includes only EGM96 geoid model but additional geoid models can be downloaded from Agisoft s website 1f they are required by the coordinate system selected in the Reference pane settings dialog alternatively a geoid model can be loaded from a custom PRJ file Downloaded geoid model from the supported list should be copied to Ageoids1 folder in PhotoScan installation directory before using the corresponding coordinate system from GUI Please refer to the following web page to review the list of supported geoid models http www agisoft com downloads geoids Optimization Optimization of camera alignment PhotoScan estimates internal and external camera orientation parameters during photo alignment This estimation is performed using image data alone and there may be some errors in the final estimates The accuracy of the final estimates depends on many factors like overlap between the neighboring photos as well as on the shape of the object surface These errors can lead to non linear deformations of the final model During georeferencing the model is linearly transformed using 7 parameter similarity transformation 3 parameters for translation 3 for rotation and 1 for scaling Such transformation can compensate only a linear model misalignment The non linear component can not be removed with this approach This is usually the ma
58. dary of the region to be exported using Set Boundary Type option from the context menu Default value for pixel size in Export Orthomosaic dialog refers to ground sampling resolution thus it 1s useless to set a smaller value the number of pixels would increase but the effective resolution would not If you have chosen to export orthomosaic with a certain pixel size not using Max dimension pix option it is recommended to check estimated Total size pix of the resulting file to be sure that it is not too large to be correctly saved to the targeted file format For Geo TIFF export compression type may be set by the user The following options are available LZW JPEG Packbits Deflate Additionally the file may be saved without compression None value of the compression type parameter Write BigTIFF file option allows to save files bigger than standard TIFF limit of 4Gb Total size textbox in the Export Orthomosaic dialog helps to estimate the size of the resulting file However it is recommended to make sure that the application you are planning to open the orthomosaic with supports BigTIFF format Alternatively you can split a large orthomosaic in blocks with each block fitting the limits of a standard TIFF file While exporting orthomosaic in JPEG format JPEG quality parameter controls balance between compression level i e quality of the result and export file size the higher the value of the parameter the more emphasis is on t
59. dividual photos can be further refined manually Reconstructed 3D model surface is required for the guided approach Guided marker placement usually speeds up the procedure of marker placement significantly and also reduces the chance of incorrect marker placement It is recommended in most cases unless there are any specific reasons preventing this operation To place a marker using guided approach 1 Open a photo where the marker is visible by double clicking on its name Si Switch to the marker editing mode using Pe Edit Markers toolbar button 3 Right click on the photo at the point corresponding to the marker location 4 Select Create Marker command from the context menu New marker will be created and its projections on the other photos will be automatically defined i Note e Ifthe 3D model is not available or the ray at the selected point does not intersect with the model surface the marker projection will be defined on the current photo only e Guided marker placement can be performed in the same way from the 3D view by right clicking on the corresponding point on the model surface and using EE Create Marker command from the context menu While the accuracy of marker placement in the 3D view 1s usually much lower 1t may be still useful for quickly locating the photos observing the specified location on the model To view the corresponding photos use Fk Filter by Markers command again from the 3D view context menu If the
60. e Ortho tab of the program window can be set as boundaries for DEM export For instructions on polygon drawing refer to Shapes section of the manual The following formats are supported for DEM export e GeoTIFF elevation data e Arc Info ASCII Grid ASC e Band interleaved file format BIL e XYZ file format e Sputnik KMZ Extra products to export In addition to main targeted products PhotoScan allows to export several other processing results like e Undistort photos 1 e photos free of lens distortions Undistort Photos command available from Export submenu of the Tools menu e Depth map for any image Export Depth command available from photo context menu e Orthophotos for individual images Export Orthophotos command available from Export submenu of the Tools menu PhotoScan supports direct uploading of the models to Sketchfab resource and of the orthomosaics to MapBox platform To publish your model orthomosaic online use Upload Model and Upload Orthomosaic command from the File menu Processing report generation PhotoScan supports automatic processing report generation in PDF format which contains the basic parameters of the project processing results and accuracy evaluations To generate processing report 1 Select Generate Report command from the File menu 2 Browse the destination folder choose the file type and print in the file name Click Save button 3 The progress dialog box will
61. e Reference pane toolbar button In scale bar section of the Reference pane estimated scale bar distance will be displayed 45 Referencing To delete a scale bar l Select the scale bar to be deleted on the Reference pane 2 Right click on it and chose Remove Scale Bars command from the context menu 3 Click OK for the selected scale bar to be deleted What do the errors in the Reference pane mean Cameras section 1 Error m distance between the input source and estimated positions of the camera 2 Error deg root mean square error calculated over all three orientation angles 3 Error pix root mean square reprojection error calculated over all feature points detected on the photo Reprojection error is the distance between the point on the image where a reconstructed 3D point can be projected and the original projection of that 3D point detected on the photo and used as a basis for the 3D point reconstruction procedure Markers section 1 Error m distance between the input source and estimated positions of the marker 2 Error pix root mean square reprojection error for the marker calculated over all photos where marker is visible Scale Bars section e Error m difference between the input source scale bar length and the measured distance between two cameras or markers representing start and end points of the scale bar If the total reprojection error for some marker seems to be too large it is
62. e click will be visualized in the active tab group PhotoScan automatically assigns default labels for each newly created marker These labels can be changed using the Rename command from the marker context menu in the Workspace Reference pane Assigning reference coordinates To reference the model the real world coordinates of at least 3 points of the scene should be specified Depending on the requirements the model can be referenced using marker coordinates camera 39 Referencing coordinates or both Real world coordinates used for referencing the model along with the type of coordinate system used are specified using the Reference pane The model can be located in either local Euclidean coordinates or in georeferenced coordinates For model georeferencing a wide range of various geographic and projected coordinate systems are supported including widely used WGS84 coordinate system Besides almost all coordinate systems from the EPSG registry are supported as well Reference coordinates can be specified in one of the following ways e Loaded from a separate text file using character separated values format e Entered manually in the Reference pane e Loaded from GPS EXIF tags if present To load reference coordinates from a text file 5 Click Import toolbar button on the Reference pane To open Reference pane use Reference command from the View menu Browse to the file containing recorded reference coordinates and
63. e meta data Once the data is properly organized it can be loaded into PhotoScan to form multiplane cameras The exact procedure will depend on whether the multilayer layout variants a and b multifolder layout variants c and d or if MicaSense data is used To create a chunk from multilayer images la Select Add Photos command from the Workflow menu or click ie Add Photos toolbar button 2 In the Add Photos dialog box browse to the folder containing multilayer images and select files to be processed Then click Open button 3 Inthe Add Photos dialog select the data layout Create multispectral cameras from files as cameras 4 Created chunk with multispectral cameras will appear on the Workspace pane To create a chunk from multifolder layout ds Select Eg Add Folder command from the Workflow menu 2 In the Add Folder dialog box browse to the parent folder containing subfolders with images Then click Select Folder button 3 Inthe Add Photos dialog select the data layout Create multispectral cameras from folders as bands 4 Created chunk with multispectral cameras will appear on the Workspace pane To create a chunk from MicaSense data bs Select Add Photos command from the Workflow menu or click ie Add Photos toolbar button 2 Inthe Add Photos dialog box browse to the folder containing MicaSense images and select files to be processed Then click Open button 3 Inthe Add Photos dialog select Create mu
64. e vertices of the exporting orthomosaic This information is already included in GeoTIFF file however you could duplicate it for some reason If you need to export orthomosaic in JPEG or PNG file formats and would like to have georeferencing data this informations could be useful If the export file of a fixed size is needed it is possible to set the length of the longer side of the export file in Max dimension pix parameter The length should be indicated in pixels Split in blocks option in the Export Orthomosaic dialog can be useful for exporting large projects You can indicate the size of the blocks in pix for the orthomosaic to be divided into The whole area will be split in equal blocks starting from the point with minimum x and y values Note that empty blocks will not be saved To export a particular part of the project use Region section of the Export Orthomosaic dialog Indicate coordinates of the bottom left and top right corners of the region to be exported in the left and right columns of the textboxes respectively Estimate button allows you to see the coordinates of the bottom left and top right corners of the whole area Alternatively you can indicate the region to be exported using polygon drawing option in the Ortho view tab of the program window For instructions on polygon drawing refer to Shapes section of the manual 28 General workflow Once the polygon 1s drawn right click on the polygon and set 1t as a boun
65. e with the help of navigation buttons to the right of the preview window in the Export Panorama dialog Set exporting parameters select camera groups which panorama should be exported for and indicate export file name mask Click OK button Browse the destination folder and click Save button Additionally you can set boundaries for the region of panorama to be exported using Setup boundaries section of the Export Panorama dialog Text boxes in the first line X allow to indicate the angle in the horizontal plane and the second line Y serves for angle in the vertical plane limits Image size option enables to control the size of the exporting file 3D model export To export 3D model 1 Select Export Model command from the File menu 2 Browse the destination folder choose the file type and print in the file name Click Save button 3 In the Export Model dialog specify the coordinate system and indicate export parameters applicable to the selected file type 4 Click OK button to start export 5 The progress dialog box will appear displaying the current processing status To cancel processing click Cancel button 26 General workflow i Note e If the model is exported in local coordinates PhotoScan can write a KML file for the exported model to be correctly located on Google Earth If a model generated with PhotoScan is to be imported in a 3D editor program for inspection or further editing it might be helpful
66. ecifies coordinates of the four angle vertices of the exporting DEM This information is already included in GeoTIFF elevation data as well as in other supported file formats for DEM export however you could duplicate it for some reason If export file of a fixed size is needed it is possible to to set the length of the longer side of the export file in Max dimension pix parameter The length should be indicated in pixels Unlike orthophoto export it is sensible to set smaller pixel size compared to the default value in DEM export dialog the effective resolution will increase If you have chosen to export DEM with a certain pixel size not using Max dimension pix option it is recommended to check estimated Total size pix of the resulting file to be sure that it is not too large to be correctly saved to the targeted file format No data value is used for the points of the grid where elevation value could not be calculated based on the source data Default value is suggested according to the industry standard however it can be changed by user 30 General workflow Split in blocks option in the Export DEM dialog can be useful for exporting large projects or meeting special DEM requirements See Orthomosaic export section for details To export a particular part of the project use Region section of the Export DEM dialog See Orthomosaic export section for details Similarly to orthomosaic export polygons drawn over the DEM on th
67. el Export Orthomosaic Export DEM Generate Report Upload Model Upload Orthomosaic Exit Edit Menu Undo u Redo a Delete Selection pal Crop Selection Invert Selection Grow Selection Shrink Selection 81 Creates an empty PhotoScan project Opens PhotoScan project file Appends existing PhotoScan project file to the current one Saves PhotoScan project file Saves PhotoScan project file with a new name Saves sparse dense point cloud Saves 3D model Saves a tiled model as hierarchical tiles Exports generated orthomosaic Exports generated digital elevation model Generates Agisoft PhotoScan processing report in PDF format Uploads reconstructed polygonal model to one of the supported web sites Uploads generated orthomosaic to one of the supported web sites Quits the application Prompts to save any unsaved changes applied to the current project Undo the last editing operation Redo the previously undone editing operation Removes selected faces from the mesh or selected points from the point cloud Crops selected faces points Inverts current selection of faces points Grows current selection of faces or sparse cloud points Shrinks current selection of faces or sparse cloud points Graphical user interface Edit Menu Gradual selection View Menu oo oo Point Cloud aga ase Dense Cloud j Dense Cloud Classes lb shaded 25 Solid lt gt W
68. ene are multiframe chunks with only a single frame loaded Navigation through the frame sequence is performed using Timeline pane Although a separate static chunk can be used to process photos for each time moment aggregate multiframe chunks implementation has several advantages e Coordinate systems for individual frames are guaranteed to match There 1s no need to align chunks to each other after processing e Each processing step can be applied to the entire sequence with a user selectable frame range There is no need to use batch processing which simplifies the workflow e Accuracy of photo alignment is better due to the joint processing of photos from the entire sequence e Markers can be tracked automatically through the sequence e Intuitive interface makes navigation through the sequence pretty simple and fast Multiframe chunks can be also efficient with some limitations for processing of disordered photo sets of the same object or even different objects provided that cameras remain static throughout the sequence Managing multiframe chunks Multiframe layout is formed at the moment of adding photos to the chunk It will reflect the data layout used to store image files Therefore it is necessary to organize files on the disk appropriately in advance The following data layouts can be used with PhotoScan a All frames from corresponding camera are contained in a separate subfolder The number of subfolders is equal to the nu
69. es dialog available from Tools menu Exporting results PhotoScan supports export of processing results in various representations sparse and dense point clouds camera calibration and camera orientation data mesh etc Orthomosaics and digital elevation models both DSM and DTM as well as tiled models can be generated according to the user requirements Point cloud and camera calibration data can be exported right after photo alignment is completed All other export options are available after the corresponding processing step If you are going to export the results point cloud mesh tiled model orthomosaics for the model that is not referenced please note that the resulting file will be oriented according to a default coordinate system see axes in the bottom right corner of the Model view 1 e the model can be shown differently from what ee you see in PhotoScan window To align the model orientation with the default coordinate system use Rotate object button from the Toolbar In some cases editing model geometry in the external software may be required PhotoScan supports model export for editing in external software and then allows to import it back as it is described in the Editing model geometry section of the manual Main export commands are available from the File menu and the rest from the Export submenu of the Tools menu Point cloud export To export sparse or dense point cloud l Select Export Points comm
70. f models from the selected chunks are combined Merge markers Defines if markers from the selected chunks are merged only markers with the same labels would be merged Chunks merging result 1 e photos point clouds and geometry will be stored in the new chunk and it may be treated as an ordinary chunk e g the model can be textured and or exported Batch processing PhotoScan allows to perform general workflow operations with multiple chunks automatically It is useful when dealing with a large number of chunks to be processed 68 Automation Batch processing can be applied to all chunks in the Workspace to unprocessed chunks only or to the chunks selected by the user Each operation chosen in the Batch processing dialog will be applied to every selected chunk before processing will move on to the next step Align Photos Align Merge Chunks Save Load Project Optimize Alignment Reset Region Export Import Cameras Build Dense Cloud Decimate Mesh Export Points Build Mesh Close Holes Export Model Build Texture Import Masks Export Texture Build Tiled Model Classify Ground Points Export Model Tiles Build DEM Import Shapes Export DEM Build Orthomosaic Generate Report Export Orthomosaic To start batch processing L 2 Select Batch Process command from the Workflow menu Click Add to add the desired processing stages In the Add Job dialog select the kind of operation to be performed the list of chunks 1t should be app
71. ferent projects If there are important small details which are spatially distingueshed in the scene to be reconstructed then it is recommended to set Mild depth filtering mode for important features not to be sorted out as outliers This value of the parameter may also be useful for aerial projects in case the area contains poorly textued roofs for example If the area to be reconstructed does not contain meaningful small details then it 1s reasonable to chose Aggressive depth filtering mode to sort out most of the outliers This value of the parameter normally recommended for aerial data processing however mild filtering may be useful in some projects as well see poorly textured roofs comment in the mild parameter valur description above Moderate depth filtering mode brings results that are in between the Mild and Aggressive approaches You can experiment with the setting in case you have doubts which mode to choose Additionally depth filtering can be Disabled But this option is not recommended as the resulting dense cloud could be extremely noisy Building mesh To build a mesh 1 Check the reconstruction volume bounding box If the model has already been referenced the bounding box will be properly positioned automatically Otherwise it is important to control its position manually To adjust the bounding box manually use the Resize Region and a Rotate Region toolbar buttons Rotate the bounding box and then drag corne
72. ficant number of pixels on the original photos This leads to a natural limitation of CTs implementation while they generally prove to be useful in close range imagery projects aerial photography projects will demand too huge CTs to be placed on the ground for the CTs to be detected correctly Coded targets in workflow Sets of all patterns of CTs supported by PhotoScan can be generated by the program itself To create a printable PDF with coded targets l Select Print Markers command from the Tools menu 2 Specify the CTs type and desired print parameters in Print Markers dialog 3 Click OK Once generated the pattern set can be printed and the CTs can be placed over the scene to be shot and reconstructed When the images with CTs seen on them are uploaded to the program PhotoScan can detect and match the CTs automatically To detect coded targets on source images 1 Select Detect Markers command from the Tools menu 2 Specify parameters of detector in Detect Markers dialog according to the CTs type 3 Click OK PhotoScan will detect and match CTs and add corresponding markers to the Reference pane CTs generated with PhotoScan software contain even number of sectors However previous versions of PhotoScan software had no restriction of the kind Thus if the project to be processed contains CTs from previous versions of PhotoScan software it is required to disable parity check in order to make the detector work N
73. ften of a larger size that the rest To remove small isolated mesh fragments 1 Select Gradual Selection command from the Edit menu 62 Editing In the Gradual Selection dialog box select Connected component size criterion Select the size of isolated components to be removed using the slider You can observe how the selection changes while dragging the slider Click OK button to finalize the selection To remove the selected components use Delete Selection command from the Edit menu or click x Delete Selection toolbar button or simply press Del button on the keyboard To remove large polygons L 2 Select Gradual Selection command from the Edit menu In the Gradual Selection dialog box select Polygon size criterion Select the size of polygons to be removed using the slider You can observe how the selection changes while dragging the slider Click OK button to finalize the selection To remove the selected components use Delete Selection command from the Edit menu or click A Delete Selection toolbar button or simply press Del button on the keyboard Note that PhotoScan always selects the fragments starting from the smallest ones If the model contains only one component the selection will be empty Manual face removal Unnecessary and excessive sections of model geometry can be also removed manually To remove part of the mesh polygons manually 1 Select rectangle circle or free form selection tool usi
74. he Reference pane Example of a reference coordinates file in CSV format txt The reference coordinates can be loaded onto the Reference pane using character separated text file format Each reference point is specified in this file on a separate line Sample reference coordinates file is provided below lt label gt lt x gt lt y gt lt 7 IMG _0159 JUPG 40 165011 48 103654 433 549477 IMG_0160 JPG 40 165551 48 103654 434 724281 IMG_0161 JPG 40 166096 48 103640 435 630558 Individual entries on each line should be separated with a tab space semicolon comma etc character All lines starting with character are treated as comments Records from the coordinate file are matched to the corresponding photos or markers basing on the label field Camera coordinates labels should match the file name of the corresponding photo including extension Marker coordinates labels should match the labels of the corresponding markers in the project file All labels are case insensitive i Note e Character separated reference coordinates format does not include specification of the type of coordinate system used The kind of coordinate system used should be selected separately e PhotoScan requires z value to indicate height above the ellipsoid 42 Referencing Using different vertical datums On default PhotoScan requires all the source altitude values for both cameras and markers to be input as values mesuared above the ellipsoi
75. he list in the Photos pane Zooms to the next marker projection on the opened photo Zooms to the previous marker projection on the opened photo Switches to navigation mode Rectangle selection tool Intelligent Scissors selection tool Intelligent Paint selection tool Magic Wand selection tool Adds current selection to the mask Subtracts current selection from the mask Inverts current selection Inverts mask for the current photo Resets mask for the current photo Turns mask shading on or off Switches to marker editing model Shows detected features used for alignment of the current photo Adjusts image brightness for more convenient display 85 Graphical user interface Help Menu Contents Check for Updates Activate Product a About PhotoScan Toolbar buttons General commands E New E Open Save 3D view commands Undo Cu Redo 3 Navigation r 1 L 4 Rectangle Selection 2 Circle Selection a Ty Free Form Selection Resize region o Rotate Region pe Rotate Object X Delete Selection y Crop Selection 3D view settings oo o0 Point Cloud goo 928 Dense Cloud j Dense Cloud Classes 86 Displays help contents Checks if PhotoScan update is available for download Activates deactivates the product using the activation key Displays program information version number and copyright Creates a new PhotoScan project file Opens a Phot
76. he quality at the expense of a larger resulting file The following formats are supported for orthomosaic export e JPEG e PNG e TIFF e GeoTIFF e Multiresolution Google Earth KML mosaic e Google Map Tiles e MBTiles e World Wind Tiles PhotoScan supports direct uploading of the orthomosaics to MapBox platform To publish your orthomosaic online use Upload Orthomosaic command from the File menu i Note e MapBox upload requires secure token with uploads write scope that should be obtained on the account page of the MapBox web site Secure token shouldn t be mixed up with the public token as the latter doesn t allow to upload orthomosaics from PhotoScan Multispectral orthomosaic export is supported in GeoTIFF format only When exporting in other formats only master channel will be saved Multispectral orthomosaic has all channels of the original imagery plus alpha channel transparency being used for no data areas of the orthomosaic To export Multispectral orthomosaic 1 Select Export Orthomosaic command from the File menu 2 Follow steps 2 4 from Orthomosaic export procedure above 29 General workflow 3 Browse the destination folder choose GeoTIFF type and print in the file name Click Save button 4 The progress dialog box will appear displaying the current processing status To cancel processing click Cancel button NDVI data export Vegetation index data export is available with the Export Ortho
77. hunk was referenced Also will appear when two or more chunks are aligned with each other See information on how to reference the model in Setting coordinate system S Scaled Notifies that 3D model in the chunk was scaled based on scale bars information only with no reference coordinates data being present See information on scale bar placement in Optimization section To move photos from one chunk to another simply select them in the list of photos on the Workspace pane and then drag and drop to the target chunk 66 Automation Working with chunks All operations within the chunk are carried out following the common workflow loading photographs aligning them generating dense point cloud building mesh building texture atlas exporting 3D model and so on Note that all these operations are applied to the active chunk When a new chunk is created it is activated automatically Save project operation saves the content of all chunks To save selected chunks as a separate project use Save Chunks command from the chunk context menu To set another chunk as active 1 Right click on the chunk title on the Workspace pane 2 Select Set Active command from the context menu To remove chunk 1 Right click on the chunk title on the Workspace pane 2 Select Remove Chunks command from the context menu Aligning chunks After the partial 3D models are built in several chunks they can be merged together Before merging chunks they
78. iding that it satisfies two conditions it lies within a certain distance from the terrain model and that the angle between terrain model and the line to connect this new point with a point from a ground class is less than a certain angle The second step is repeated while there still are points to be checked The following parameters control automatic ground points classification procedure Max angle deg Determines one of the conditions to be checked while testing a point as a ground one 1 e sets limitation for an angle between terrain model and the line to connect the point in question with a point from a ground class For nearly flat terrain it is recommended to use default value of 15 deg for the parameter It is reasonable to set a higher value if the terrain contains steep slopes Max distance m Determines one of the conditions to be checked while testing a point as a ground one 1 e sets limitation for a distance between the point in question and terrain model In fact this parameter determines the assumption for the maximum variation of the ground elevation at a time Cell size m Determines the size of the cells for point cloud to be divided into as a preparatory step in ground points classification procedure Cell size should be indicated with respect to the size of the largest area within the scene that does not contain any ground points e g building or close forest Manual classification of dense cloud points PhotoScan al
79. imagery 4 Note e Build Tiled Model procedure can be performed only for projects saved in PSX format To build a tiled model 1 Check the reconstruction volume bounding box tiled model will be generated for the area within bounding box only To adjust the bounding box use the Resize Region and Ce Rotate Region toolbar buttons Rotate the bounding box and then drag corners of the box to the desired positions 2 Select the Build Tiled Model command from the Workflow menu 3 In the Build Tiled model dialog box select the desired reconstruction parameters Click OK button when done 4 The progress dialog box will appear displaying the current processing status To cancel processing click Cancel button Reconstruction parameters Pixel size m Suggested value shows automatically estimated pixel size due to input imagery effective resolution It can be set by the user in meters Tile size Tile size can be set in pixels For smaller tiles faster visualisation should be expected 19 General workflow Building digital elevation model PhotoScan allows to generate and visualize a digital elevation model DEM A DEM represents a surface model as a regular grid of height values DEM can be rasterized from a dense point cloud a sparse point cloud or a mesh Most accurate results are calculated based on dense point cloud data PhotoScan enables to perform DEM based point distance area volume measurements as well as genera
80. in A customised palette can be saved for future projects using Export Palette button on the Palette tab of the Raster Calculator dialog PhotoScan enables to calculate contour lines based on the calculated index values To calculate contour lines based on vegetation index data l Select Generate Contours command from the orthomosaic icon context menu on the Workspace pane while index data 1s shown in the Ortho view 2 Select Orthomosaic as the source for the contours calculation 3 Adjust the min max value and the interval parameters for the task 4 Press OK button to calculate index values 5 The progress dialog box will appear displaying the current processing status To cancel processing click Cancel button 6 When the procedure is finished a contour lines label will be added to the project file structure shown on the Workspace pane The contour lines will be shown over the index data on the Ortho tab 14 Note e PhotoScan keeps only the latest contour lines data calculated Thus if you need to save contour lines calculated for the DEM data use Export Contours command from the contour lines label context menu on the Workspace pane before generating contour lines for the index data After vegetation index results having been inspected the original orthomosaic can be opened with unchecking Enable transform box in the Raster Calculator and pressing OK button Index data can be saved with Export orthomosaic command from
81. in reason for georeferencing errors Possible non linear deformations of the model can be removed by optimizing the estimated point cloud and camera parameters based on the known reference coordinates During this optimization PhotoScan adjusts estimated point coordinates and camera parameters minimizing the sum of reprojection error and reference coordinate misalignment error To achieve greater optimizing results it may be useful to edit sparse point cloud deleting obviously mislocated points beforehand To read about point cloud editing refer to the Editing point cloud section of the manual Georeferencing accuracy can be improved significantly after optimization It is recommended to perform optimization if the final model is to be used for any kind of measurements To optimize camera alignment 1 Set the marker and or camera coordinates to be used for optimization if not done yet a Click 4 Settings toolbar button on the Reference pane and set the coordinate system if not done yet 3 Inthe Reference pane Settings dialog box specify the assumed accuracy of measured values as well as the assumed accuracy of marker projections on the source photos 4 Click OK button 5 Indicate relative GPS device and or INS to camera coordinates if info is available on GPS INS tab of Camera Calibration dialog available from Tools menu 43 Referencing 6 Check Fix GPS INS offset box 7 Click OK button Click P Optimize toolbar but
82. in the Preferences dialog box For each OpenCL device used one physical CPU core should be disabled for optimal performance e Using OpenCL acceleration with mobile or integrated graphics video chips is not recommended because of the low performance of such GPUs Installation procedure Installing PhotoScan on Microsoft Windows To install PhotoScan on Microsoft Windows simply run the downloaded msi file and follow the instructions Installing PhotoScan on Mac OS X Open the downloaded dmg image and drag PhotoScan application to the desired location on your hard drive Installing PhotoScan on Debian Ubuntu Unpack the downloaded archive with a program distribution kit to the desired location on your hard drive Start PhotoScan by running photoscan sh script from the program folder Restrictions of the Demo mode Once PhotoScan is downloaded and installed on your computer you can run it either in the Demo mode or in the full function mode On every start until you enter a serial number it will show a registration box offering two options 1 use PhotoScan in the Demo mode or 2 enter a serial number to confirm the purchase The first choice is set by default so if you are still exploring PhotoScan click the Continue button and PhotoScan will start in the Demo mode The employment of PhotoScan in the Demo mode is not time limited Several functions however are not available in the Demo mode These functions are the following e sav
83. ing box To adjust the bounding box use the de Resize Region and a Rotate Region toolbar buttons Rotate the bounding box and then drag corners of the box to the desired positions 2 Select the Build Dense Cloud command from the Workflow menu 3 In the Build Dense Cloud dialog box select the desired reconstruction parameters Click OK button when done 14 4 General workflow The progress dialog box will appear displaying the current processing status To cancel processing click Cancel button Reconstruction parameters Quality Specifies the desired reconstruction quality Higher quality settings can be used to obtain more detailed and accurate geometry but they require longer time for processing Interpretation of the quality parameters here is similar to that of accuracy settings given in Photo Alignment section The only difference is that in this case Ultra High quality setting means processing of original photos while each following step implies preliminary image size downscaling by factor of 4 2 times by each side Additionally the following advanced parameters can be adjusted Depth Filtering modes At the stage of dense point cloud generation reconstruction PhotoScan calculates depth maps for every image Due to some factors like noisy or badly focused images there can be some outliers among the points To sort out the outliers PhotoScan has several built in filtering algorithms that answer the challenges of dif
84. ing the project Installation e build tiled model e build orthomosaic e build DEM e DEM and orthomosaic related features such as Raster Calculator DEM based measurements e some Python commands e exporting reconstruction results you can only view a 3D model on the screen To use PhotoScan in the full function mode you have to purchase it On purchasing you will get the serial number to enter into the registration box on starting PhotoScan Once the serial number is entered the registration box will not appear again and you will get full access to all functions of the program Chapter 2 Capturing photos Before loading your photographs into PhotoScan you need to take them and select those suitable for 3D model reconstruction Photographs can be taken by any digital camera both metric and non metric as long as you follow some specific capturing guidelines This section explains general principles of taking and selecting pictures that provide the most appropriate data for 3D model generation IMPORTANT Make sure you have studied the following rules and read the list of restrictions before you get out for shooting photographs Equipment e Use a digital camera with reasonably high resolution 5 MPix or more e Avoid ultra wide angle and fisheye lenses The best choice is 50 mm focal length 35 mm film equivalent lenses It is recommended to use focal length from 20 to 80 mm interval in 35mm equivalent If a data set was c
85. ion If interpolation mode is Disabled it leads to accurate reconstruction results since only areas corresponding to dense point cloud points are reconstructed With Enabled default interpolation mode PhotoScan will calculate DEM for all areas of the scene that are visible on at least one image Enabled default setting is recommended for DEM generation In Extrapolated mode the program generates holeless model with some elevation data being extrapolated Point classes The parameter allows to select a point class classes that will be used for DEM calculation To generate digital terrain model DTM it is necessary to classify dense cloud points first in order to divide them in at least two classes ground points and the rest Please refer to Classifying dense cloud 20 General workflow points section to read about dense point cloud classification options Select Ground value for Point class parameter in Build DEM dialog to generate DTM To calculate DEM for a particular part of the project use Region section of the Build DEM dialog Indicate coordinates of the bottom left and top right corners of the region to be exported in the left and right columns of the textboxes respectively Suggested values indicate coordinates of the bottom left and top right corners of the whole area to be rasterized the area being defined with the bounding box Resolution value shows effective ground resolution for the DEM estimated for the source data Size of
86. ireframe S Textured ll Tiled Model Full Screen Navigation Mode Show Cameras Eb Show Markers El Show Region Show Trackball O Show Info baal Show Grid Show All Hide All Predefined views Perspective Orthographic Stereo Mode sir O4 Reset View 82 Selects faces points based on the specified criterion Displays sparse point cloud reconstructed during photo alignment Displays dense point cloud Displays dense point cloud colored by point classes Displays 3D model in the shaded mode Displays 3D model in the solid mode Displays 3D model in the wireframe mode Displays 3D model in the textured mode Displays tiled model Switches to from Full Screen mode Switches between Object Terrain navigation modes for the Model view window Object navigation mode allows for 3 axis rotation control while Terrain navigation mode restricts control to 2 axis rotation only z axis being kept vertical all the time Shows or hides camera positions estimated during image alignment Shows or hides marker positions Shows or hides region selector Shows or hides the trackball Shows or hides the mesh information on screen display Shows or hides the grid related to XY plane Shows all elements at the same time Hides all elements Switches viewport to one of the predefined views Switches visualisation view between Perspective and Orthographic Enable disable stereo view mode according
87. iven in the Camera calibration section Capturing photos Lens distortion The distortion of the lenses used to capture the photos should be well simulated with the Brown s distortion model Otherwise it is most unlikely that processing results will be accurate Fisheye and ultra wide angle lenses are poorly modeled by the common distortion model implemented in PhotoScan software so it is required to choose proper camera type in Camera Calibration dialog prior to processing Chapter 3 General workflow Processing of images with PhotoScan includes the following main steps e loading photos into PhotoScan e inspecting loaded images removing unnecessary images e aligning photos e building dense point cloud e building mesh 3D polygonal model e generating texture e building tiled model e building digital elevation model e building orthomosaic e exporting results If you are using PhotoScan in the full function not the Demo mode intermediate results of the image processing can be saved at any stage in the form of project files and can be used later The concept of projects and project files is briefly explained in the Saving intermediate results section The list above represents all the necessary steps involved in the construction of a textured 3D model DEM and orthomosaic from your photos Some additional tools which you may find to be useful are described in the successive chapters Preferences settings Before
88. ks on them Photo view is visible only if any photo is opened To open a photo double click on its name on the Workspace Reference or Photos pane Switching to Photo view mode changes the contents of the Toolbar presenting related instruments and hiding irrelevant buttons 78 Graphical user interface Workspace pane On the Workspace pane all elements comprising the current project are displayed These elements can include List of chunks in the project List of cameras and camera groups in each chunk List of markers in each chunk List of scale bars in each chunk Tie points in each chunk Depth maps in each chunk Dense point clouds in each chunk 3D models in each chunk Tiled models in each chunk Digital elevation models in each chunk Orthomosaics in each chunk Shapes in each chunk Elevation contours in each chunk Buttons located on the Workspace pane toolbar allow to Add chunk Add photos Add marker Create scale bar Enable or disable certain cameras or chunks for processing at further stages Remove items Each element in the list is linked with the context menu providing quick access to some common operations Photos pane Photos pane displays the list of photos masks in the active chunk in the form of thumbnails Buttons located on the Photos pane toolbar allow to Enable disable certain cameras Remove cameras Rotate selected photos clockwise counterclockwise Reset current photo filtering
89. lied to and desired processing parameters Click OK button when done Repeat the previous steps to add other processing steps as required Arrange jobs by clicking Up and Down arrows at the right of the Batch Process dialog box Click OK button to start processing The progress dialog box will appear displaying the list and status of batch jobs and current operation progress To cancel processing click the Cancel button When the batch process includes import export features that are applied to multiple chunks it is reasonable to use the following templates in the Path field of the import export jobs filename filename without extension fileext file extension camera camera label frame frame index chunklabel chunk label imagefolder folder containing images of an active chunk project folder path to the folder containing active project projectname active project filename The list of tasks for batch processing can be exported to XML structured file using Save button in the Batch processing dialog and imported in a different project using E Open button 69 Automation 4D processing Overview PhotoScan supports reconstruction of dynamic scenes captured by a set of statically mounted synchronized cameras For this purpose multiple image frames captured at different time moments can be loaded for each camera location forming a multiframe chunk In fact normal chunks capturing a static sc
90. line editing tool The functionality allows to choose manually the image or images to texture the indicated part of the orthomosaic from Thus the final orthomosaic can be improved visually according to the user s expectations rea Automatic seamlines can be turned on for inspection in the Ortho view with pressing the Show Seamlines button from the Ortho view toolbar To edit orthomosaic seamlines ae Draw a polygon on the orthomosaic using Draw Polygon instrument to indicate the area to be retextured 64 Editing 2 Select Assign Images command from the context menu of the selected polygon 3 In the Assign Images dialog box select the image to texture the area inside the polygon from Orthomosaic preview on the Ortho tab allows to evaluate the results of the selection Click OK button to finalise the image selection process Click Ud Update Orthomosaic button from the Ortho view toolbar to apply the changes Assign Images dialog allows to activate multiple selection option If the Allow multiple selection option is checked it is possible to assign several images to texture the area inside the polygon from However in this case there is no possibility to preview the resulting orthomosaic It is necessary to Click Ed Update Orthomosaic button from the Ortho view toolbar to apply the changes and see the results Until the changes are applied the area of interest will be marked with a net of blue colour to indicate that s
91. ll be present on the model and are to be filled at the post processing step In Ext rapolated mode the program generates holeless model with extrapolated geometry Large areas of extra geometry might be generated with this method but they could be easily removed later using selection and cropping tools Point classes Specifies the classes of the dense point cloud to be used for mesh generation For example select only Ground Points to produce a DTM as opposed to a DSM Preliminary Classifying dense cloud points procedure should be performed for this option of mesh generation to be active 16 General workflow i Note e PhotoScan tends to produce 3D models with excessive geometry resolution so it is recommended to perform mesh decimation after geometry computation More information on mesh decimation and other 3D model geometry editing tools is given in the Editing model geometry section Building model texture To generate 3D model texture 1 Select Build Texture command from the Workflow menu 2 Select the desired texture generation parameters in the Build Texture dialog box Click OK button when done 3 The progress dialog box will appear displaying the current processing status To cancel processing click Cancel button Texture mapping modes The texture mapping mode determines how the object texture will be packed in the texture atlas Proper texture mapping mode selection helps to obtain optimal texture packing and
92. lows to associate all the points within the dense cloud with a certain standard class see LIDAR data classification This provides possibility to diversify export of the processing results with respect to different types of objects within the scene e g DTM for ground mesh for buildings and point cloud for vegetation To assign a class to a group of points 1 l l N _ BBB Switch to Dense Cloud view mode using using 65 Dense Cloud toolbar button 2 l SOI E a T ia l Select points to be placed to a certain class using 1 Rectangle Selection Circle Selection or L Free Form Selection tools To add new points to the current selection hold the Ctrl key during selection of additional points To remove some points from the current selection hold the Shift key during selection of points to be removed 3 Select Assign Class command from the Dense Cloud submenu of the Tools menu 4 In the Assign Class dialog box select the source point data for the classification procedure and the targeted class to be assigned to the selected points Click OK button to run classification procedure 60 Editing Dense point cloud classification can be reset with Reset Classification command from Tools Dense Cloud menu Editing model geometry The following mesh editing tools are available in PhotoScan e Decimation tool e Close Holes tool e Automatic filtering based on specified criterion e Manual polygon removal e Fixing mesh topology
93. ltispectral cameras from files as bands 4 Created chunk with multispectral cameras will appear on the Workspace pane After chunk with multispectral cameras is created it can be processed in the same way as normal chunks For these chunks additional parameters allowing to manipulate the data properly will be provided where appropriate 11 General workflow Aligning photos Once photos are loaded into PhotoScan they need to be aligned At this stage PhotoScan finds the camera position and orientation for each photo and builds a sparse point cloud model To align a set of photos l Select Align Photos command from the Workflow menu 2 Inthe Align Photos dialog box select the desired alignment options Click OK button when done 3 The progress dialog box will appear displaying the current processing status To cancel processing click Cancel button Alignment having been completed computed camera positions and a sparse point cloud will be displayed You can inspect alignment results and remove incorrectly positioned photos if any To see the matches between any two photos use View Matches command from a photo context menu in the Photos pane Incorrectly positioned photos can be realigned To realign a subset of photos 1 Reset alignment for incorrectly positioned cameras using Reset Camera Alignment command from the photo context menu 2 Set markers at least 4 per photo on these photos and indicate their projections
94. lygonal models project saving procedure can take up quite a long time You can decrease compression level to speed up the saving process However please note that 1t will result in a larger project file Compression level setting can be found on the Advanced tab of the Preferences dialog available from Tools menu The software also allows to save PhotoScan Project file psx which stores the links to the processing results in psx file and the data itself in files structured archive This format enables responsive loading of large data dense point clouds meshes etc thus avoiding delays on reopening a hundreds of photos project DEM and orthomosaic generation options are available only for projects saved in PSX format You can save the project at the end of any processing stage and return to it later To restart work simply load the corresponding file into PhotoScan Project files can also serve as backup files or be used to save different versions of the same model Project files use relative paths to reference original photos Thus when moving or copying the project file to another location do not forget to move or copy photographs with all the folder structure involved as well Otherwise PhotoScan will fail to run any operation requiring source images although the project file including the reconstructed model will be loaded up correctly Alternatively you can enable Store absolute image paths option on the Advanced tab of the Preferenc
95. m error for Z coordinate for a GCP location check point Error m root mean square error for X Y Z coordinates for a GCP location check point Projections number of projections for a GCP location check point over all the images Error pix root mean square error for X Y coordinates on an image for a GCP location check point averaged over all the images Total implies averaging over all the GCP locations check points Scale Bars Distance m scale bar length estimated by PhotoScan Error m difference between input and estimated values for scale bar length Total implies averaging over all the scale bars in Control Check section Digital Elevation Model Resolution effective resolution of the exported DEM The value depends on the Quality parameter value used at Build point cloud step providing that DEM has been generated from dense point cloud Point Density average number of dense cloud points per square meter Processing Parameters Processing report contains processing parameters information which is also available form Chunk context menu Along with the values of the parameters used at various processing stages this page of the report presents information on processing time Processing time attributed to Dense point cloud processing step will exclude time spent on depth maps reconstruction unless Keep depth maps option is checked on Advanced tab of Preferences dialog available from Tools menu Fo
96. mber of cameras b Corresponding frames from all cameras are contained in a separate subfolder The number of subfolders is equal to the number of frames c All frames from corresponding camera are contained in a separate multilayer image The number of multilayer images is equal to the number of cameras d Corresponding frames from all cameras are contained in a separate multilayer image The number of multilayer images is equal to the number of frames Once the data is properly organized it can be loaded into PhotoScan to form a multiframe chunk The exact procedure will depend on whether the multifolder layout variants a and b or multilayer variants c and d layout is used To create a chunk from multifolder layout Select ES Add Folder command from the Workflow menu 70 Automation 2 In the Add Folder dialog box browse to the parent folder containing subfolders with images Then click Select Folder button 3 Inthe Add Photos dialog select the suitable data layout For layout a above select Create multiframe cameras from folders as cameras For layout b select Create multiframe cameras from folders as frames 4 Created multiframe chunk will appear on the Workspace pane To create a chunk from multilayer images I Select Add Photos command from the Workflow menu or click ie Add Photos toolbar button 2 In the Add Photos dialog box browse to the folder containing multilayer images and select files to
97. meters have not been estimated for the current photo yet Images loaded to PhotoScan will not be aligned until you perform the next step photos alignment Notifies that Camera Station type was assigned to the group Multispectral imagery PhotoScan supports processing of multispectral images saved as multichannel single page TIFF files The main processing stages for multispectral images are performed based on the master channel which can be selected by the user During orthophoto export all spectral bands are processed together to form a multispectral orthophoto with the same bands as in source images The overall procedure for multispectral imagery processing does not differ from the usual procedure for normal photos except the additional master channel selection step performed after adding images to the project For the best results it is recommended to select the spectral band which is sharp and as much detailed as possible To select master channel 1 Add multispectral images to the project using Add Photos command from the Workflow menu or T Add Photos toolbar button 2 Select Set Master Channel command from the chunk context menu in the Workspace pane 3 Inthe Set Master Channel dialog select the channel to be used as master and click OK button Display of images in PhotoScan window will be updated according to the master channel selection i Note e Set Master Channel command is available for RGB images as
98. mn GPS INS offset values input by the user can also be adjusted by PhotoScan with respect to measurement accuracy that may be indicated on the GPS INS tab of Camera Calibration dialog Uncheck Fix GPS INS offset box to allow for adjustment procedure Generally it is reasonable to run optimization procedure based on markers data only It is due to the fact that GCPs coordinates are measured with significantly higher accuracy compared to GPS data that indicates camera positions Thus markers data are sure to give more precise optimization results Moreover quite often GCP and camera coordinates are measured in different coordinate systems that also prevents from using both cameras and markers data in optimization simultaneously The results of the optimization procedure can be evaluated with the help of error information on the Reference pane In addition distortion plot can be inspected along with mean residuals visualised per calibration group This data is available from Camera Calibration dialog Tools menu from context menu of a camera group Distortion Plot command Note that residuals are averaged per cell of an image and then across all the images in a camera group Scale reference under the plot indicates the scale of the distortions residuals In case optimization results does not seem to be satisfactory you can try recalculating with lower values of parameters 1 e assuming ground control measurements to be more accurate Scale
99. mosaic command from the File menu Vegetation index data can be saved as two types of data as a grid of floating point index values calculated per pixel of orthomosaic or as an orthomosaic in pseudocolors according to a pallet set by user The format is controlled with Raster transform option in Export Orthomosaic Export Google KMZ Export Google Map Tiles Export MBTiles Export World Wind Tiles dialogs None value allows to export orthomosaic generated for the data before any index calculation procedure was performed DEM DSM DTM export PhotoScan allows to calculate and then export both a digital surface model DSM and a digital terrain model DTM see Building digital elevation model section To export DEM l Select Export DEM command from the File menu 2 Inthe Export DEM dialog specify coordinate system to georeference the DEM 3 Check Write KML file and or Write World file options to create files needed to georeference the DEM in the Google Earth and or a GIS 4 Click Export button to start export 5 Browse the destination folder choose the file type and print in the file name Click Save button 6 The progress dialog box will appear displaying the current processing status To cancel processing click Cancel button 4 Note e Write KML file option is available only if the model is georeferenced in WGS84 coordinate system due to the fact that Google Earth supports only this coordinate system e World file sp
100. n Ortho view Imports edited mesh from the external program Imports edited texture from the external program Imports digital elevation model Exports camera positions and orientation data Exports marker projections Exports masks Exports tie point measurements Exports shapes created in Ortho view Exports contour lines related to the surface elevation Exports model texture Exports spherical panorama for camera stations Tools Menu Export Orthophotos Undistort Photos 1O Camera Calibration P Optimize Cameras Reset Region das e s Preferences 4 Run Script Photo Menu Open Next Photo Open Previous Photo Go To Next Marker Go To Previous Marker S Navigation Rectangle Selection 7 Intelligent Scissors as Intelligent Paint AR Magic Wand Add Selection a seen 7 z Invert Selection Invert Mask X Reset Mask 9 Turn Shading On Off pb Edit Markers oo ao View Points d Image Brightness Graphical user interface Exports separate orthorectified images Removes nonlinear distortions by warping source photos Shows camera calibration dialog box Shows camera alignment optimization dialog box Resets reconstruction volume selector to default position based on the sparse point cloud Shows preferences dialog box Opens Python Run Script dialog box Opens next photo from the list in the Photos pane Opens previous photo from t
101. n be exported as a grid of floating point index values calculated per pixel of orthomosaic or as an orthomosaic in pseudocolors according to a pallet set by the user 51 Measurements To calculate a vegetation index 1 Open orthomosaic in the Ortho tab doubleclicking on the orthomosaic label on the Workspace pane E Open Raster Calculator tool using ei Raster Calculator button from the Ortho view toolbar 3 Input an index expression using keyboard input and operators buttons of the raster calculator if necessary 4 Check Enable transform box and press OK button to calculate index values 5 Once the operation is completed the result will be shown in the Ortho view index values being visualised with colours according to the palette set in the Raster Calculator dialog Palette defines the colour for each index value to be shown with PhotoScan offers several standard palette presets on the Palette tab of the Raster Calculator dialog A preset NDVI Heat Gray scale can be chosen from a drop down list Alternatively the user can upload the palette from a Surfer Color Spectrum clr file Import Palette preliminary prepared in an external tool The palette can also be edited within PhotoScan environment using Dada Color and E Remove Color buttons on the Palette tab of the Raster Calculator dialog For each new line added to the palette a certain index value should be typed in Double click on the newly added line to type the value
102. n the point on the image where a reconstructed 3D point can be projected and the original projection of that 3D point detected on the photo and used as a basis for the 3D point reconstruction procedure Camera Calibration For precalibrated cameras internal parameters input by the user are shown on the report page If a camera was not precalibrated internal camera parameters estimated by PhotoScan are presented Camera Locations X error m root mean square error for X coordinate for all the cameras Y error m root mean square error for Y coordinate for all the cameras XY error m root mean square error for X and Y coordinates for all the cameras Z error m root mean square error for Z coordinate for all the cameras Total error m root mean square error for X Y Z coordinates for all the cameras Total error sqrt Sum 1 0 est Xi in Yi est Yi in Zi est Zi in n 32 General workflow Xi in Input value for X coordinate for i camera position Xi est estimated value for X coordinate for 1 camera position Yi in Input value for Y coordinate for 1 camera position Yi est estimated value for Y coordinate for 1 camera position Zi in Input value for Z coordinate for 1 camera position Zi est estimated value for Z coordinate for 1 camera position Ground Control Points XY error m root mean square error for X and Y coordinates for a GCP location check point Z error
103. natively camera group structure can be used to manipulate the image data in a chunk easily e g to apply Disable Enable functions to all the cameras in a group at once To move photos to a camera group 1 On the Workspace pane or Photos pane select the photos to be moved 2 Right click on the selected photos and choose Move Cameras New Camera Group command from the opened context menu 3 A new group will be added to the active chunk structure and selected photos will be moved to that group 4 Alternatively selected photos can be moved to a camera group created earlier using Move Cameras Camera Group Group_name command from the context menu To mark group as camera station right click on the camera group name and select Set Group Type command from the context menu Inspecting loaded photos Loaded photos are displayed on the Workspace pane along with flags reflecting their status General workflow The following flags can appear next to the photo name NC Not calibrated Notifies that the EXIF data available is not sufficient to estimate the camera focal length In this case PhotoScan assumes that the corresponding photo was taken using 50mm lens 35mm film equivalent If the actual focal length differs significantly from this value manual calibration may be required More details on manual camera calibration can be found in the Camera calibration section NA Not aligned Notifies that external camera orientation para
104. need to be aligned To align separate chunks 1 Select Align Chunks command from the Workflow menu 2 Inthe Align Chunks dialog box select chunks to be aligned indicate reference chunk with a double click Set desired alignment options Click OK button when done 3 The progress dialog box will appear displaying the current processing status To cancel processing click the Cancel button Aligning chunks parameters The following parameters control the chunks alignment procedure and can be modified in the Align Chunks dialog box Method Defines the chunks alignment method Point based method aligns chunks by matching photos across all the chunks Marker based method uses markers as common points for different chunks The details on using markers are available in the Setting coordinate system section Camera based method is used to align chunks based on estimated camera locations Corresponding cameras should have the same label Accuracy Point based alignment only Higher accuracy setting helps to obtain more accurate chunk alignment results Lower accuracy setting can be used to get the rough chunk alignment in the shorter time Point limit Point based alignment only The number indicates upper limit of feature points on every image to be taken into account during Point based chunks alignment 67 Automation Fix scale Option is to be enabled in case the scales of the models in different chunks were set precisely and should be
105. ng Rectangle Selection 2 Circle Selection or 4 Free Form Selection toolbar buttons Make the selection using the mouse To add new polygons to the current selection hold the Ctrl key during selection of additional polygons To remove some polygons from the current selection hold the Shift key during selection of polygons to be excluded To delete selected polygons click the A Delete Selection toolbar button or use Delete Selection command from the Edit menu To crop selection to the selected polygons click the F Crop Selection toolbar button or use Crop Selection command from the Edit menu To grow or shrink current selection 1 To grow current selection press PageUp key in the selection mode To grow selection by even a larger amount press PageUp while holding Shift key pressed To shrink current selection press PageDown key in the selection mode To shrink selection by even a larger amount press PageDown while holding Shift key pressed Fixing mesh topology PhotoScan is capable of basic mesh topology fixing 63 Editing To fix mesh topology 1 Select View Mesh Statistics command from the Tools menu 2 In the Mesh Statistics dialog box you can inspect mesh parameters If there are any topological problems Fix Topology button will be active and can be clicked to solve the problems 3 The progress dialog box will appear displaying the current processing status To cancel processing click on the Cancel button
106. ntelligent scissors Intelligent paint Magic wand Add selection 89 Ctrl Z Ctrl Y Space Ctrl mouse wheel Ctrl Shift C 7 Ctrl 7 3 Ctrl 3 1 Ctrl 1 DD E N 00 Page Up Page Down Tab Shift Tab y ES Ctrl Shift A Graphical user interface Selection Tools Subtract selection Ctrl Shift S Invert selection Ctrl Shift I 90 Appendix B Supported formats Images Input formats JPG TIFF PNG BMP OpenEXR PGM PPM MPO SEQ Camera calibration Import formats Agisoft Camera Calibration xml Australis Camera Parameters txt PhotoModeler Camera Calibration in1 3DM CalibCam Camera Parameters txt CalCam Camera Calibration cal INPHO Camera Calibration txt Camera flight log Input format JPG EXIF metadata Character separated values txt MAVinci CSV csv TopoAxis telemetry tel C Astral Bramor log log GCP locations Input format Character separated values txt Agisoft XML xml Undistort formats JPG TIFF PNG BMP OpenEXR Export formats Agisoft Camera Calibration xml Australis Camera Parameters txt PhotoModeler Camera Calibration in1 3DM CalibCam Camera Parameters txt CalCam Camera Calibration cal INPHO Camera Calibration txt Kstimated positions Character separated values txt Agisoft XML xml Kstimated positions Character separated values txt Agisoft XML xml
107. ntrol total size of the resulting orthomosaic data for the currently selected reconstruction area all available data default or a certain region Region parameter and resolution Pixel size or Max dimension parameters The information is shown in the Total size pix textbox Saving intermediate results Certain stages of 3D model reconstruction can take a long time The full chain of operations could eventually last for 4 6 hours when building a model from hundreds of photos It is not always possible to complete all the operations in one run PhotoScan allows to save intermediate results in a project file PhotoScan Archive files psz may contain the following information e List of loaded photographs with reference paths to the image files e Photo alignment data such as information on camera positions sparse point cloud model and set of refined camera calibration parameters for each calibration group e Masks applied to the photos in project e Depth maps for cameras e Dense point cloud model with information on points classification e Reconstructed 3D polygonal model with any changes made by user This includes mesh and texture if it was built 22 General workflow e List of added markers as well as of scale bars and information on their positions e Structure of the project 1 e number of chunks in the project and their content Note that since PhotoScan tends to generate extra dense point clouds and highly detailed po
108. oScan project file Saves a PhotoScan project file Undo the last editing operation Redo the previously undone editing operation Navigation tool Rectangle selection tool Circle selection tool Free form selection tool Volume selection tool Volume rotation tool Model rotation tool Removes selected faces points Crops selected faces points Displays sparse point cloud reconstructed during image alignment Displays dense point cloud model Displays dense point cloud coloured by point classes Graphical user interface 3D view settings d shaded db solid lt gt Wireframe SS Textured E Tiled model Show Cameras Eb Show Markers Show Aligned Chunks i Reset View Photo view commands Undo Cu Redo 3 Navigation Rectangle Selection 5 Intelligent Scissors IN Intelligent Paint A Magic Wand Add Selection O 7 J f Invert Selection wl JL Rotate Right Je E Rotate Left x Zoom In Zoom Out d Image Brightness 2 Turn Shading On Off Eb Edit Markers 87 Displays 3D model in the shaded mode Displays 3D model in the solid mode Displays 3D model in the wireframe mode Displays 3D model in the textured mode Displays tiled model Shows hides camera positions reconstructed during image alignment Shows hides positions of markers placed on the model Shows hides aligned chunks Resets model view Undo the last mask editing
109. ojections on the corresponding photos To refine marker location 1 Open the photo where the marker is visible by double clicking on the photo s name Automatically placed marker will be indicated with Picon Switch to the marker editing mode using Pe Edit Markers toolbar button 3 Move the marker projection to the desired location by dragging it using left mouse button Once the marker location is refined by user the marker icon will change to 4 Note e To list photos where the marker locations are defined select the corresponding marker on the Workspace pane The photos where the marker is placed will be marked with a Pe icon on the Photos pane To filter photos by marker use Fk Filter by Markers command from the 3D view context menu In those cases when there are hesitations about the features depicted on the photo comparative inspection of two photos can prove to be useful To open two photos in PhotoScan window simultaneously Move to Other Tab Group command is available from photo tab header context menu To open two photos simultaneously 1 In the Photos pane double click on one photo to be opened The photo will be opened in a new tab of the main program window 2 Right click on the tab header and choose Move to Other Tab Group command from the context menu The main program window will be divided into two parts and the photo will be moved to the second part 3 The next photo you will choose to be opened with a doubl
110. older choose the file type and print in the file name Click Save button 3 The progress dialog box will appear displaying the current processing status To cancel processing click Cancel button 2l General workflow PhotoScan supports tiled model export in the following formats e PhotoMesh Layer zip e Agisoft Tiled Model tls e Agisoft Tile Archive zip Agisoft Tiled Model can be visualised in Agisoft Viewer application which is included in Agisoft PhotoScan Professional installation file Thanks to hierarchical tiles format it allows to responsively visualise large models Orthomosaic export To export Orthomosaic 1 Select Export Orthomosaic command from the File menu 2 Inthe Export Orthomosaic dialog box specify coordinate system for the Orthomosaic to be saved in 3 Check Write KML file and or Write World file options to create files needed to georeference the orthomosaic in the Google Earth and or a GIS 4 Click Export button to start export 5 Browse the destination folder choose the file type and print in the file name Click Save button 6 The progress dialog box will appear displaying the current processing status To cancel processing click Cancel button 4 Note e Write KML file option is available only if the model is georeferenced in WGS84 coordinate system due to the fact that Google Earth supports only this coordinate system e World file specifies coordinates of the four angl
111. ome edits are waiting for enforcement Blending method selected at build orthomosaic step will be implemented at orthomosaic editing step Assign Images dialog alternatively allows to exclude selected images from texturing the area of interest Check Exclude selected images option to follow this way Please note that in this case preview illustrates the image to be excluded i d the results one should expect after applying the changes are not shown Click Ud Update Orthomosaic button from the Ortho view toolbar to apply the changes 65 Chapter 7 Automation Using chunks When working with typical data sets automation of general processing workflow allows to perform routine operations efficiently PhotoScan allows to assign several processing steps to be run one by one without user intervention thanks to Batch Processing feature Manual user intervention can be minimized even further due to multiple chunk project concept each chunk to include one typical data set For a project with several chunks of the same nature common operations available in Batch Processing dialog are applied to each selected chunk individually thus allowing to set several data sets for automatic processing following predefined workflow pattern In addition multiple chunk project could be useful when it turns out to be hard or even impossible to generate a 3D model of the whole scene in one go This could happen for instance 1f the total amount of photographs is
112. on several computer nodes connected to a local network In such configuration multiple PhotoScan instances running on different processing nodes can work on the same task in parallel effectively reducing the total processing time needed By default processing is divided between the nodes on a chunk by chunk frame by frame basis with the exception of camera alignment and optimization where each chunk is processed as a whole on a single node In addition a more fine grained distribution can be enabled for image matching and alignment as well as generation of dense clouds tiled models DEMs and orthomosaics in which case processing of individual chunks frames is further subdivided between several processing nodes Communication between processing nodes server and clients is performed using TCP connections In addition shared network storage accessible for all processing nodes and clients is used for storing the source data and intermediate processing results Cluster components Processing node n Network storage Server The server node coordinates operation of all processing nodes maintaining a task queue for all projects scheduled for processing A separate interface 1s provided for clients which can connect to the server to start new processing tasks or monitor progress of existing ones The server itself doesn t perform any processing and can easily run on slow hardware The server component is critical for operation of the clu
113. on at least two photos from the already aligned subset PhotoScan will consider these points to be true matches For information on markers placement refer to the Setting coordinate system section 3 Select photos to be realigned and use Align Selected Cameras command from the photo context menu 4 The progress dialog box will appear displaying the current processing status To cancel processing click Cancel button When the alignment step is completed the point cloud and estimated camera positions can be exported for processing with another software if needed Image quality Poor input e g vague photos can influence alignment results badly To help you to exclude poorly focused images from processing PhotoScan suggests automatic image quality estimation feature Images with quality value of less than 0 5 units are recommended to be disabled and thus excluded from photogrammetric processing providing that the rest of the photos cover the whole scene to be reconstructed To disable a photo use gt Disable button from the Photos pane toolbar PhotoScan estimates image quality for each input image The value of the parameter is calculated based on the sharpness level of the most focused part of the picture To estimate image quality Switch to the detailed view in the Photos pane using Details command from the Change menu on the Photos pane toolbar 2 Select all photos to be analyzed on the Photos pane 12 General workflo
114. on based solely on the sparse point cloud Dense cloud setting will result in longer processing time but will generate high quality output based on the previously reconstructed dense point cloud Polygon count Specifies the maximum number of polygons in the final mesh Suggested values High Medium Low are calculated based on the number of points in the previously generated dense point cloud the ration 1s 1 5 1 15 and 1 45 respectively They present optimal number of polygons for a mesh of a corresponding level of detail It is still possible for a user to indicate the target number of polygons in the final mesh according to their choice It could be done through the Custom value of the Polygon count parameter Please note that while too small number of polygons is likely to result in too rough mesh too huge custom number over 10 million polygons is likely to cause model visualization problems in external software Additionally the following advanced parameters can be adjusted Interpolation If interpolation mode is Disabled it leads to accurate reconstruction results since only areas corresponding to dense point cloud points are reconstructed Manual hole filling is usually required at the post processing step With Enabled default interpolation mode PhotoScan will interpolate some surface areas within a circle of a certain radius around every dense cloud point As a result some holes can be automatically covered Yet some holes can sti
115. on coded targets implementation Non coded targets can also be automatically detected by PhotoScan see Detect Markers dialog However for non coded targets to be matched automatically it is necessary to run align photos procedure first Non coded targets are more appropriate for aerial surveying projects due to the simplicity of the pattern to be printed on a large scale But looking alike they does not allow for automatic identification so manual assignment of an identifier is required if some referencing coordinates are to be imported from a file correctly 47 Chapter 5 Measurements Performing measurements on mesh PhotoScan supports measuring of distances between control points as well as of surface area and volume of the reconstructed 3D model Distance measurement PhotoScan enables measurements of direct distances between the points of the reconstructed 3D scene The points used for distance measurement must be defined by placing markers in the corresponding locations Model coordinate system must be also initialized before the distance measurements can be performed Alternatively the model can be scaled based on known distance scale bar information to become suitable for measurements For instructions on placing markers refining their positions and setting coordinate system please refer to the Setting coordinate system section of the manual Scale bar concept 1s described in the Optimization section To measure distance
116. pixels from individual photos Disabled the color value for the pixel is taken from the photo with the camera view being almost along the normal to the reconstructed surface in that point Enable color correction Color correction feature is useful for processing of data sets with extreme brightness variation However please note that color correction process takes up quite a long time so it is recommended to enable the setting only for the data sets that proved to present results of poor quality before Pixel size Default value for pixel size in Export Orthomosaic dialog refers to ground sampling resolution thus it is useless to set a smaller value the number of pixels would increase but the effective resolution would not However if it is meaningful for the purpose pixel size value can be changed by the user Max dimension pix The parameter allows to set maximal dimension for the resulting raster data PhotoScan generates orthomosaic for the whole area where surface data is available Bounding box limitations are not applied To build orthomosaic for a particular rectangular part of the project use Region section of the Build Orthomosaic dialog Indicate coordinates of the bottom left and top right corners of the region to be exported in the left and right columns of the textboxes respectively Estimate button allows you to see the coordinates of the bottom left and top right corners of the whole area Estimate button enables to co
117. plied Intelligent scissors tool Intelligent scissors 1s used to generate a selection by specifying 1ts boundary The boundary is formed by selecting a sequence of vertices with a mouse which are automatically connected with segments The segments can be formed either by straight lines or by curved contours snapped to the object boundaries To enable snapping hold Ctrl key while selecting the next vertex To complete the selection the boundary should be closed by clicking on the first boundary vertex 55 Editing a Intelligent paint tool Intelligent paint tool is used to paint a selection by the mouse continuously adding small image regions bounded by object boundaries 5 Magic wand tool Magic Wand tool is used to select uniform areas of the image To make a selection with a Magic Wand tool click inside the region to be selected The range of pixel colors selected by Magic Wand is controlled by the tolerance value At lower tolerance values the tool selects fewer colors similar to the pixel you click with the Magic Wand tool Higher value broadens the range of colors selected 4 Note e To add new area to the current selection hold the Ctrl key during selection of additional area e To reset mask selection on the current photo press Esc key A mask can be inverted using Invert Mask command from the Photo menu The command is active in Photo View only Alternatively you can invert masks either for selected cameras or for all
118. r node simultaneously Cluster setup Before proceeding to the following steps please make sure that shared network storage 1s accessible from all processing and client nodes using the same absolute path It should be either mounted to the same folder on all nodes Linux or should have the same UNC network path Windows In case such configuration 1s not possible for example in mixed Windows Linux cluster a path prefix can be specified on each node to compensate for the differences Starting server It is recommended to configure server with a static IP address not dynamically assigned one This IP address will be needed for each processing node and client The server process can be started by executing PhotoScan with the following command line arguments photoscan server control lt ip gt port dispatch lt ip gt port root prefix Server parameter specifies that PhotoScan should be started in a server mode control parameter specifies the network interface to be used for communication with clients In case port value is omitted the default port 5840 is used dispatch parameter specifies the network interface to be used for communication with processing nodes In case port value is omitted the default port 5841 is used root parameter can be used to specify network storage mount point or prefix path in case it is not the same across network Example photoscan server control 10 0 1 1 dispatch 10 0 1 1
119. r projects calculated over network processing time will not be shown PhotoScan matches images on different scales to improve robustness with blurred or difficult to match images The accuracy of tie point projections depends on the scale at which they were located PhotoScan uses information about scale to weight tie point reprojection errors In the Reference pane settings dialog tie point accuracy parameter now corresponds to normalized accuracy 1 e accuracy of tie point detected at the scale equal to 1 Tie points detected on other scales will have accuracy proportional to their scales 33 General workflow This helps to obtain more accurate bundle adjustment results On the processing parameters page of the report as well as in chunk information dialog two reprojection errors are provided the reprojection error in the units of tie point scale this is the quantity that is minimized during bundle adjustment and the reprojection error in pixels for convenience The mean key point size value is a mean tie point scale averaged across all projections 34 Chapter 4 Referencing Camera calibration Calibration groups While carrying out photo alignment PhotoScan estimates both internal and external camera orientation parameters including nonlinear radial distortions For the estimation to be successful it is crucial to apply the estimation procedure separately to photos taken with different cameras Once photos have been loaded in
120. rce mode using the Reference pane toolbar button 5 Double click on the Distance m box next to the newly created scale bar name and enter the known length of the bar in meters To add a scale bar between cameras l Select the two cameras on the Workspace or Reference pane using Ctrl button Alternatively the cameras can be selected in the Model view window using selecting tools from the Toolbar Select Eb Create Scale Bar command form the context menu The scale bar will be created and an instant added to the Scale Bar list on the Reference pane Switch to the La View Source mode using the Reference pane toolbar button 4 Double click on the Distance m box next to the newly created scale bar name and enter the known length of the bar in meters To run scale bar based optimization 1 On the Reference pane check all scale bars to be used in optimization procedure 2 dal Click 4 Settings toolbar button on the Reference pane In the Reference pane Settings dialog box specify the assumed accuracy of scale bars measurements 3 Click OK button Click PF Optimize toolbar button In Optimize Camera Alignment dialog box check additional camera parameters to be optimized if needed Click OK button to start optimization After the optimization 1s complete cameras and markers estimated coordinates will be updated as well as all the georeferencing errors To analyze optimization results switch to the View Estimated mode using th
121. reasonable to exclude poorly focused images from processing at this step PhotoScan suggests automatic image quality estimation feature Images with quality value of less than 0 5 units are recommended to be disabled and thus excluded from texture generation procedure To disable a photo use gt Disable button from the Photos pane toolbar 18 General workflow PhotoScan estimates image quality as a relative sharpness of the photo with respect to other images in the data set The value of the parameter is calculated based on the sharpness level of the most focused part of the picture To estimate image quality p Switch to the detailed view in the Photos pane using f Details command from the Change menu on the Photos pane toolbar 2 Select all photos to be analyzed on the Photos pane 3 Right button click on the selected photo s and choose Estimate Image Quality command from the context menu 4 Once the analysis procedure is over a figure indicating estimated image quality value will be displayed in the Quality column on the Photos pane Building tiled model Hierarchical tiles format is a good solution for city scale modeling It allows for responsive visualisation of large area 3D models in high resolution a tiled model being opened with Agisoft Viewer a complementary tool included in PhotoScan installer package Tiled model is build based on dense point cloud data Hierarchical tiles are textured from the source
122. recommended to inspect reprojection errors for the marker on individual photos The information is available with Show Info command from the marker context menu on the Reference pane Working with coded and non coded targets Overview Coded and non coded targets are specially prepared yet quite simple real world markers that can add up to successful 3D model reconstruction of a scene The difference between coded and non coded targets is that while a non coded target looks like an ordinary full circle or a figure circle rectangular with 4 segments the coded target has a ring parted in black and white segments around the central full circle Coded targets advantages and limitations Coded targets CTs can be used as markers to define local coordinate system and scale of the model or as true matches to improve photo alignment procedure PhotoScan functionality includes automatic detection and matching of CTs on source photos which allows to benefit from marker implementation in the project 46 Referencing while saving time on manual marker placement Moreover automatic CT s detection and marker placement 1s more precise then manual marker placement PhotoScan supports three types of circle CTs 12 bit 16 bit and 20 bit While 12 bit pattern is considered to be decoded more precisely 16 bit and 20 bit patterns allow for a greater number of CTs to be used within the same project To be detected successfully CTs must take up a signi
123. res Shapes can be drawn over DEM or Orthomosaic using buttons from the Ortho view toolbar Alternatively shapes can be loaded from a SHP file using Import Shapes subcommand of Import command available from the Tools menu Shapes created in PhotoScan can be exported using Export Shapes subcommand of Export command available from the Tools menu To draw a shape 1 Open DEM orthomosaic in Ortho view double clicking on DEM orthomosaic label in the Workspace pane Select Draw Point A Draw Polyline Draw Polygon instrument from the Ortho view toolbar 3 Draw a point polyline polygon on the DEM orthomosaic with a cursor 4 Double click on the last point to indicate the end of a polyline To complete a polygon place the end point over the starting one gt Once the shape is drawn a shape label will be added to the chunk data structure on the Workspace pane All shapes drawn on the same DEM and on the corresponding orthomosaic will be shown under the same label on the Workspace pane 6 The program will switch to a navigation mode once a shape is completed 49 Measurements After a shape has been drawn it can be edited using Insert Vertex Delete Vertex commands from the context menu Delete Vertex command is active only for a vertex context menu To get access to the vertex context menu select the shape with a double click first and then select the vertex with a double click on it To change position of a ve
124. riate capturing scenarios Facade Incorrect Facade Correct Capturing photos Interior Incorrect Interior Correct Isolated Object Incorrect Isolated Object Correct IA Restrictions In some cases 1t might be very difficult or even impossible to build a correct 3D model from a set of pictures A short list of typical reasons for photographs unsuitability is given below Modifications of photographs PhotoScan can process only unmodified photos as they were taken by a digital photo camera Processing the photos which were manually cropped or geometrically warped is likely to fail or to produce highly inaccurate results Photometric modifications do not affect reconstruction results Lack of EXIF data To estimate the field of view for each photo PhotoScan uses the information saved in the EXIF part of each picture If EXIF data are available you can expect to get the best possible 3D reconstruction However 3D scene can also be reconstructed in the absence of EXIF data In this case PhotoScan assumes that focal length in 35 mm equivalent equals to 50 mm and tries to align the photos in accordance with this assumption If the correct focal length value differs significantly from 50 mm the alignment can give incorrect results or even fail In such cases it is required to specify initial camera calibration manually The details of necessary EXIF tags and instructions for manual setting of the calibration parameters are g
125. rs of the box to the desired positions only part of the scene inside the bounding box will be reconstructed If the Height field reconstruction method is to be applied it is important to control the position of the red side of the bounding box it defines reconstruction plane In this case make sure that the bounding box is correctly oriented Select the Build Mesh command from the Workflow menu In the Build Mesh dialog box select the desired reconstruction parameters Click OK button when done 15 General workflow 4 The progress dialog box will appear displaying the current processing status To cancel processing click Cancel button Reconstruction parameters PhotoScan supports several reconstruction methods and settings which help to produce optimal reconstructions for a given data set Surface type Arbitrary surface type can be used for modeling of any kind of object It should be selected for closed objects such as statues buildings etc It doesn t make any assumptions on the type of the object being modeled which comes at a cost of higher memory consumption Height field surface type is optimized for modeling of planar surfaces such as terrains or basereliefs It should be selected for aerial photography processing as it requires lower amount of memory and allows for larger data sets processing Source data Specifies the source for the mesh generation procedure Sparse cloud can be used for fast 3D model generati
126. rtex drag and drop it to a selected position with the cursor Point measurement Ortho view allows to measure coordinates of any point on the reconstructed model X and Y coordinates of the point indicated with the cursor as well as height of the point above the vertical datum selected by the user are shown in the bottom right corner of the Ortho view Distance measurement To measure distance 5 Connect the points of interest with a polyline using A Draw Polyline tool from the Ortho view toolbar 2 Double click on the last point to indicate the end of a polyline 3 Right button click on the polyline and select Measure command from the context menu 4 In the Measure Shape dialog inspect the results Perimeter value equals to the distance that should have been measured In addition to polyline length value see perimeter value in the Measure Shape coordinates of the vertices of the polyline are shown on the Planar tab of the Measure Shape dialog 4 Note e Measure option is available from the context menu of a selected polyline To select a polyline double click on it A selected polyline is coloured in red Surface area and volume measurement To measure area and volume 1 ny Ea Draw a polygon on the DEM using Draw Polygon instrument to indicate the area to be measured 2 Right button click on the polygon and select Measure command from the context menu 3 In the Measure Shape dialog inspect the results
127. should be within the Bounding box The red side of the Bounding box should be under the model it defines the axis of the spherical projection The marks on the front side determine the O meridian Single photo The Single photo mapping mode allows to generate texture from a single photo The photo to be used for texturing can be selected from Texture from list 17 General workflow Keep uv The Keep uv mapping mode generates texture atlas using current texture parametrization It can be used to rebuild texture atlas using different resolution or to generate the atlas for the model parametrized in the external software Texture generation parameters The following parameters control various aspects of texture atlas generation Texture from Single photo mapping mode only Specifies the photo to be used for texturing Available only in the Single photo mapping mode Blending mode not used in Single photo mode Selects the way how pixel values from different photos will be combined in the final texture Mosaic implies two step approach 1t does blending of low frequency component for overlapping images to avoid seamline problem weighted average weight being dependent on a number of parameters including proximity of the pixel in question to the center of the image while high frequency component that is in charge of picture details 1s taken from a single image the one that presents good resolution for the area of interest while
128. sks section i Note e Tie point limit parameter allows to optimize performance for the task and does not generally effect the quality of the further model Recommended value is 4000 Too high or too low tie point limit value may cause some parts of the dense point cloud model to be missed The reason is that PhotoScan generates depth maps only for pairs of photos for which number of matching points is 13 General workflow above certain limit This limit equals to 100 matching points unless moved up by the figure 10 of the maximum number of matching points between the photo in question and other photos only matching points corresponding to the area within the bounding box being considered e The number of tie points can be reduced after the alignment process with Tie Points Thin Point Cloud command available from Tools menu As a results sparse point cloud will be thinned yet the alignment will be kept unchanged Point cloud generation based on imported camera data PhotoScan supports import of external and internal camera orientation parameters Thus if precise camera data is available for the project it is possible to load them into PhotoScan along with the photos to be used as initial information for 3D reconstruction job To import external and internal camera parameters 1 Select Import Cameras command from the Tools menu 2 Select the format of the file to be imported 3 Browse to the file and click Open button
129. ster and is not fault tolerant Measures should be taken to ensure continuous operation of the server node The server node accepts TCP connections from processing nodes and clients on 2 separate interfaces which can be attached to different physical network interfaces if necessary The server node doesn t initiate any TCP connections itself 73 Network processing Processing nodes Processing nodes perform actual calculations and thus need to be run on fast hardware Each processing node connects to the server on startup and waits for a task to be assigned Once the task 1s available the node starts processing informing the server about the progress When processing is finished the results are stored on shared network storage and the server 1s informed about completion Then a node switches to the next task when 1t becomes available Processing nodes can be added or removed from the cluster as needed Abnormal shutdown of processing node doesn t cause cluster failure in most cases Nevertheless it is highly recommended to stop particular nodes using Agisoft Network Monitor before disconnecting them from the cluster Clients Clients can connect to the server node to control cluster operation or to monitor 1ts status New tasks can be submitted for processing using Agisoft PhotoScan software configured as a network client while cluster monitoring is performed using Agisoft Network Monitor Multiple clients can be connected to the serve
130. t s take for instance a set of photos of some object Along with an object itself on each photo some background areas are present These areas may be useful for more precise camera positioning so it is better to use them while aligning the photos However impact of these areas at the building dense point cloud is exactly opposite the resulting model will contain object of interest and its background Background geometry will consume some part of mesh polygons that could be otherwise used for modeling the main object 53 Editing Setting the masks for such background areas allows to avoid this problem and increases the precision and quality of geometry reconstruction Building texture atlas During texture atlas generation masked areas on the photos are not used for texturing Masking areas on the photos that are occluded by outliers or obstacles helps to prevent the ghosting effect on the resulting texture atlas Loading masks Masks can be loaded from external sources as well as generated automatically from background images if such data is available PhotoScan supports loading masks from the following sources e From alpha channel of the source photos e From separate images e Generated from background photos based on background differencing technique e Based on reconstructed 3D model To import masks L Zo Select Import Masks command from the Tools menu In the Import Mask dialog select suitable parameters
131. te Contours dialog select DEM as the source data for calculation 3 Set values for Minimal altitude Maximal altitude parameters as well as the Interval for the contours All the values shoud be indicated in meters 4 Click OK button once done 5 The progress dialog box will appear displaying the current processing status To cancel processing click Cancel button 6 When the procedure is finished a contour lines label will be added to the project file structure shown on the Workspace pane Contour lines can be shown over the DEM or orthomosaic on the Ortho tab of the program window Use a l l i Show contour lines tool from the Ortho tab toolbal to switch the function on and off Contour lines can be deleted using Remove Contours command from the contour lines label context menu on the Workspace pane Contour lines can be exported using Export Contours command from the contour lines label context menu on the Workspace pane Alternatively the command is available from the Tools menu In the Export Contour Lines dialog it is necessary to select the type of the contour lines to be exported A SHP file can store the lines of the same type only either polygons or polylines Vegetation indices calculation PhotoScan enables to calculate NDVI and other vegetation indices based on the multispectral imagery input A vegetation index formula can be set by the user thus allowing for great flexibility in data analysis Calculated data ca
132. te cross sections for a part of the scene selected by the user Additionally contour lines can be calculated for the model and depicted either over DEM or Orthomosaic in Ortho view within PhotoScan environment More information on measurement functionality can be found in Performing measurements on DEM section 4 Note e Build DEM procedure can be performed only for projects saved in PSX format e DEM can be calculated for referenced models only So make sure that you have set a coordinate system for your model before going to build DEM operation For guidance on Setting coordinate system please go to Setting coordinate system DEM is calculated for the part of the model within the bounding box To adjust the bounding box use the Resize Region and o Rotate Region toolbar buttons Rotate the bounding box and then drag corners of the box to the desired positions To build DEM 1 Select the Build DEM command from the Workflow menu 2 Inthe Build DEM dialog box set Coordinate system for the DEM 3 Select source data for DEM rasterization 4 Click OK button when done 5 The progress dialog box will appear displaying the current processing status To cancel processing click Cancel button Parameters Source data It is recommended to calculate DEM based on dense point cloud data Preliminary elevation data results can be generated from a sparse point cloud avoiding Build Dense Cloud step for time limitation reasons Interpolat
133. te toolbar button to apply changes and set coordinates 40 Referencing Additionally 1t 1s possible to indicate accuracy data for the coordinates Select Set Accuracy command from the context menu of an image on the Reference pane and input accuracy data both for position 1 e x y z coordinates and orientation 1 e yaw pitch roll angles data It is possible to select several cameras and apply Set Accuracy command simultaneousely to all of them Alternatively you can select Accuracy m or Accuracy deg text box for a certain camera on the Reference pane and press F2 button on the keyboard to type the text data directly onto the Reference pane Note that delimeter allows to enter different accuracy data for x y z or yaw pitch roll data respectively To load reference coordinates from GPS EXIF tags Click Fa Import EXIF button on the Reference pane To open Reference pane use Reference command from the View menu The reference coordinates data will be loaded into the Reference pane After reference coordinates have been assigned PhotoScan automatically estimates coordinates in a local Euclidean system and calculates the referencing errors To see the results switch to the View Estimated or View Errors modes respectively using View Estimated and 4 View Errors toolbar buttons The largest error will be highlighted To set a georeferenced coordinate system 1 Assign reference coordinates using one of the options des
134. terception with sensor plane skew Skew transformation coefficient k1 k2 k3 k4 Radial distortion coefficients pl p2 p3 p4 Tangential distortion coefficients Setting coordinate system Many applications require data with a defined coordinate system Setting the coordinate system also provides a correct scaling of the model allowing for surface area and volume measurements and makes model loading in geoviewers and geoinformation software much easier Some functionality like digital elevation model export is available only after the coordinate system is defined PhotoScan supports setting a coordinate system based on either ground control point marker coordinates or camera coordinates In both cases the coordinates are specified in the Reference pane and can be either loaded from the external file or typed in manually Setting coordinate system based on recorded camera positions is often used in aerial photography processing However it may be also useful for processing photos captured with GPS enabled cameras Placing markers is not required if recorded camera coordinates are used to initialize the coordinate system In the case when ground control points are used to set up the coordinate system the markers should be placed in the corresponding locations of the scene Using camera positioning data for georeferencing the model is faster since manual marker placement is not required On the other hand ground control point coordina
135. tes are usually more accurate than telemetry data allowing for more precise georeferencing Placing markers PhotoScan uses markers to specify locations within the scene Markers are used for setting up a coordinate system photo alignment optimization measuring distances and volumes within the scene as well as for marker based chunk alignment Marker positions are defined by their projections on the source photos The more photos are used to specify marker position the higher is accuracy of marker placement To define marker location within a scene it should be placed on at least 2 photos 4 Note e Marker placement is not required for setting the coordinate system based on recorded camera coordinates This section can be safely skipped if the coordinate system is to be defined based on recorded camera locations 37 Referencing PhotoScan supports two approaches to marker placement manual marker placement and guided marker placement Manual approach implies that the marker projections should be indicated manually on each photo where the marker is visible Manual marker placement does not require 3D model and can be performed even before photo alignment In the guided approach marker projection is specified for a single photo only PhotoScan automatically projects the corresponding ray onto the model surface and calculates marker projections on the rest of the photos where marker is visible Marker projections defined automatically on in
136. the File menu For guidance on the export procedure please refer to NDVI data export section of the manual 52 Chapter 6 Editing Using masks Overview Masks are used in PhotoScan to specify the areas on the photos which can otherwise be confusing to the program or lead to incorrect reconstruction results Masks can be applied at the following stages of processing e Alignment of the photos e Building dense point cloud Building 3D model texture e Exporting Orthomosaic Alignment of the photos Masked areas can be excluded during feature point detection Thus the objects on the masked parts of the photos are not taken into account while estimating camera positions This is important in the setups where the object of interest is not static with respect to the scene like when using a turn table to capture the photos Masking may be also useful when the object of interest occupies only a small part of the photo In this case a small number of useful matches can be filtered out mistakenly as a noise among a much greater number of matches between background objects Building dense point cloud While building dense point cloud masked areas are not used in the depth maps computation process Masking can be used to reduce the resulting dense cloud complexity by eliminating the areas on the photos that are not of interest Masked areas are always excluded from processing during dense point cloud and texture generation Stages Le
137. the program PhotoScan automatically divides them into calibration groups according to the image resolution and or EXIF metadata like camera type and focal length All the actions described below could and should be applied or not applied to each calibration group individually Calibration groups can be rearranged manually To create a new calibration group 1 Select Camera Calibration command from the Tools menu 2 Inthe Camera Calibration dialog box select photos to be arranged in a new group 3 In the right click context menu choose Create Group command 4 Anew group will be created and depicted on the left hand part of the Camera Calibration dialog box To move photos from one group to another 1 Select Camera Calibration command from the Tools menu 2 Inthe Camera Calibration dialog box choose the source group on the left hand part of the dialog 3 Select photos to be moved and drag them to the target group on the left hand part of the Camera Calibration dialog box To place each photo into a separate group you can use Split Groups command available at the right button click on a calibration group name in the left hand part of the Camera Calibration dialog Camera types PhotoScan supports four major types of camera frame camera fisheye camera spherical camera and cylindrical camera Camera type can be set in Camera Calibration dialog box available from Tools menu Frame camera If the source data within a calibration
138. to alignment and will not be directly used in the further 3D model construction procedure except for the sparse point cloud based reconstruction method However it can be exported for further usage in external programs For instance the sparse point cloud model can be used in a 3D editor as a reference On the contrary the set of camera positions is required for further 3D model reconstruction by PhotoScan 2 The next stage is building dense point cloud Based on the estimated camera positions and pictures themselves a dense point cloud is built by PhotoScan Dense point cloud may be edited and classified prior to export or proceeding to 3D mesh model generation 3 The third stage is building mesh PhotoScan reconstructs a 3D polygonal mesh representing the object surface based on the dense or sparse point cloud according to the user s choice Generally there are two algorithmic methods available in PhotoScan that can be applied to 3D mesh generation Height Field for planar type surfaces Arbitrary for any kind of object The mesh having been built it may be necessary to edit it Some corrections such as mesh decimation removal of detached components closing of holes in the mesh smoothing etc can be performed by PhotoScan For more complex editing you have to engage external 3D editor tools PhotoScan allows to export mesh edit it by another software and import it back 4 After geometry i e mesh is reconstructed it can be tex
139. to the processing workflow Chapter 8 Network processing presents guidelines on how to organize distributed processing of the imagery data on several nodes It can take up quite a long time to reconstruct a 3D model PhotoScan allows to export obtained results and save intermediate data in a form of project files at any stage of the process If you are not familiar with the concept of projects its brief description is given at the end of the Chapter 3 General workflow In the manual you can also find instructions on the PhotoScan installation procedure and basic rules for taking good photographs 1 e pictures that provide most necessary information for 3D reconstruction For the information refer to Chapter 1 Installation and Chapter 2 Capturing photos vi Chapter 1 Installation System requirements Minimal configuration e Windows XP or later 32 or 64 bit Mac OS X Snow Leopard or later Debian Ubuntu 64 bit e Intel Core 2 Duo processor or equivalent e 2GB of RAM Recommended configuration e Windows XP or later 64 bit Mac OS X Snow Leopard or later Debian Ubuntu 64 bit e Intel Core 17 processor e 12GB of RAM The number of photos that can be processed by PhotoScan depends on the available RAM and reconstruction parameters used Assuming that a single photo resolution is of the order of 10 MPix 2GB RAM is sufficient to make a model based on 20 to 30 photos 12GB RAM will allow to process up to 200 300 photographs
140. to use Shift function while exporting the model It allows to set the value to be subtracted from the respective coordinate value for every vertex in the mesh Essentially this means translation of the model coordinate system origin which may be useful since some 3D editors for example truncate the coordinates values up to 8 or so digits while in some projects they are decimals that make sense with respect to model positioning task So 1t can be recommended to subtract a value equal to the whole part of a certain coordinate value see Reference pane Camera coordinates values before exporting the model thus providing for a reasonable scale for the model to be processed in a 3D editor program PhotoScan supports model export in the following formats e Wavefront OBJ e 3DS file format e VRML e COLLADA e Stanford PLY e STL models e Autodesk FBX e Autodesk DXF e Google Earth KMZ e U3D e Adobe PDF Some file formats OBJ 3DS VRML COLLADA PLY FBX save texture image in a separate file The texture file should be kept in the same directory as the main file describing the geometry If the texture atlas was not built only the model geometry is exported PhotoScan supports direct uploading of the models to Sketchfab resource To publish your model online use Upload Model command from the File menu Tiled model export To export tiled model l Select Export Tiled Model command from the File menu 2 Browse the destination f
141. ton In Optimize Camera Alignment dialog box check additional camera parameters to be optimized if needed Click OK button to start optimization 9 After the optimization is complete the georeferencing errors will be updated 4 Note e Step 5 can be safely skipped if you are using standard GPS not that of extremely high precision e Tangential distortion parameters p3 p4 are available for optimization only if pl p2 values are not equal to zero after alignment step e The model data if any is cleared by the optimization procedure You will have to rebuild the model geometry after optimization Image coordinates accuracy for markers indicates how precisely the markers were placed by the user or adjusted by the user after being automatically placed by the program Ground altitude parameter is used to make reference preselection mode of alignment procedure work effectively for oblique imagery See Aligning photos for details Camera marker and scale bar accuracy can be set per item 1 d per camera marker scale bar using Accuracy column on the Reference pane Accuracy values can be typed in on the pane per item or for a group of selected items Alternatively accuracy values can be uploaded along with camera marker data as a text file see Assigning reference coordinates subsection of Setting coordinate system Additionally different accuracies per coordinate can be indicated using as a separator between values in the Accuracy colu
142. tured and or used for orthomosaic generation Several texturing modes are available in PhotoScan they are described in the corresponding section of this manual as well as orthomosaic and DEM generation procedures About the manual Basically the sequence of actions described above covers most of the data processing needs All these operations are carried out automatically according to the parameters set by user Instructions on how to get through these operations and descriptions of the parameters controlling each step are given in the corresponding sections of the Chapter 3 General workflow chapter of the manual In some cases however additional actions may be required to get the desired results In some capturing scenarios masking of certain regions of the photos may be required to exclude them from the calculations Application of masks in PhotoScan processing workflow as well as editing options available are described Overview in Chapter 6 Editing Camera calibration issues are discussed in Chapter 4 Referencing that also describes functionality to optimize camera alignment results and provides guidance on model referencing A referenced model be 1t a mesh or a DEM serves as a ground for measurements Area volume profile measurement procedures are tackled in Chapter 5 Measurements which also includes information on vegetation indices calculations While Chapter 7 Automation describes opportunities to save up on manual intervention
143. valent However if the initial guess values differ significantly from the actual focal length 1t 1s likely to lead to failure of the alignment process So if photos do not contain EXIF metadata it is preferable to specify focal length mm and sensor pixel size mm manually It can be done in Camera Calibration dialog box available from Tools menu Generally this data is indicated in camera specification or can be received from some online source To indicate to the program that camera orientation parameters should be estimated based on the focal length and pixel size information it is necessary to set the Type parameter on the Initial tab to Auto value Camera calibration parameters Once you have tried to run the estimation procedure and got poor results you can improve them thanks to the additional data on calibration parameters To specify camera calibration parameters 1 Select Camera Calibration command from the Tools menu 2 Select calibration group which needs reestimation of camera orientation parameters on the left side of the Camera Calibration dialog box 3 Inthe Camera Calibration dialog box select Initial tab 4 Modify the calibration parameters displayed in the corresponding edit boxes 5 Set the Type to the Precalibrated value 6 Repeat to every calibration group where applicable 7 Click OK button to set the calibration i Note e Alternatively initial calibration data can be imported from file using Load
144. vigation mode mouse buttons functionality is inverted and left button is responsible for tilt whereas right button for rotation i Note e Zooming into the model can be also controlled by the mouse wheel Ortho view Ortho view is used for the display of 2D processing results data digital elevation model full resolution orthomosaic NDVI colour coded values as well as shapes and contour lines data Switching between DEM and orthomosaic can be performed using the corresponding button on the toolbar or by double clicking on the respective icon on the Workspace pane providing that both products have been generated Orthomosaic can be displayed in the original colours or in colours according to the palette set for vegetation index values visualisation Additional instruments allow to draw points polylines and polygons on the orthomosaic and or digital elevation model to perform point linear profile and volume measurements Also polygonal shapes are allowed to be set up as inner or outer boundaries that will be used for the definition of the area to be exported Using polygonal shapes allows to create custom seamlines on the orthomosaic which can be useful for some projects enabling to eliminate blending artefacts Switching to Ortho view mode changes the contents of the Toolbar presenting related instruments and hiding irrelevant buttons Photo view Photo view tab 1s used for displaying individual photos as well as markers and mas
145. w 3 Right button click on the selected photo s and choose Estimate Image Quality command from the context menu 4 Once the analysis procedure is over a figure indicating estimated image quality value will be displayed in the Quality column on the Photos pane Alignment parameters The following parameters control the photo alignment procedure and can be modified in the Align Photos dialog box Accuracy Higher accuracy settings help to obtain more accurate camera position estimates Lower accuracy settings can be used to get the rough camera positions in a shorter period of time While at High accuracy setting the software works with the photos of the original size Medium setting causes image downscaling by factor of 4 2 times by each side at Low accuracy source files are downscaled by factor of 16 and Lowest value means further downscaling by 4 times more Highest accuracy setting upscales the image by factor of 4 Since tie point positions are estimated on the basis of feature spots found on the source images 1t may be meaningful to upscale a source photo to accurately localize a tie point However Highest accuracy setting is recommended only for very sharp image data and mostly for research purposes due to the corresponding processing being quite time consuming Pair preselection The alignment process of large photo sets can take a long time A significant portion of this time period 1s spent on matching of detected features across
146. well You can either indicate only one channel to be used as the basis for photogrammetric processing or leave the parameter value as Default for all three channels to be used in processing Multispectral orthomosaic export is supported in GeoTIFF format only When exporting in other formats only master channel will be saved Rigid camera rigs PhotoScan supports processing of multispectral datasets captured with multiple synchronized cameras operating in different spectral ranges In this case multiple images planes are available for each position and PhotoScan will estimate separate calibration for each plane as well as their relative orientation within camera rig 10 General workflow Multiplane layout is formed at the moment of adding photos to the chunk It will reflect the data layout used to store image files Therefore it is necessary to organize files on the disk appropriately in advance The following data layouts can be used with PhotoScan a All image planes from each position are contained in a separate multilayer image The number of multilayer images is equal to the number of camera positions b Corresponding planes from all camera positions are contained in a separate subfolder The number of subfolders is equal to the number of planes c For a special case of MicaSense camera no special layout is required In this case the arrangement of images into cameras and planes will be performed automatically based on availabl
147. work Monitor Make sure the server IP is properly configured in the host name field and click Connect button 2 In the bottom list of network nodes identify the node to be removed From the node menu select Pause command to stop the node after it finishes current job or Stop command to abort processing immediately 3 Wait until the Batch and Progress items for a selected node become empty This indicates that the node has finished processing The status of the node should be Paused 4 Now you can safely disconnect the node by aborting PhotoScan process 76 Appendix A Graphical user interface Application window General view El Project psx Agisoft PhotoScan File Edit View Workflow Tools Photo Help points 91 327 010 Workspace Ash GO x a Workspace 1 chunks 415 cameras 4 Chunk 415 cameras 29 markers 806 325 points R gt Cameras 415 415 aligned gt Markers 29 Tie Points 806 325 points Dense Cloud 91 327 010 points Medium quality 3D Model 1 464 956 faces DEM 91338548 31 7 compo Orthomosaic 3393531797 8 cm pix Shapes 1 polygons oo oo PES EE LE a East err rm 0 010445 0 008225 0 018676 0 020064 0 007358 0 011158 0 000328 0 005569 0 017687 North err m Alt 0 005093 0 004656 0 000546 0 002613 0 023379 0 006114 0 001162 0 001984 0 012559 486055 506963 X 6083744 580682 Y SE General view of application window Model view Model
148. y the user providing that mesh is selected as a surface type To generate orthomosaic in a planar projection choose Planar Projection Type in Build Orthomosaic dialog You can select projection plane and orientation of the orthomosaic PhotoScan provides an option to project the model to a plane determined by a set of markers if there are no 3 markers in a desired projection plane it can be specified with 2 vectors i e 4 markers Planar projection type may be useful for orthomosaic generation in projects concerning facades or surfaces that are not described with Z X Y function To generate an orthomosaic in planar projection preliminary generation of mesh data is required Parameters Surface Orthomosaic creation based on DEM data is especially efficient for aerial survey data processing scenarios allowing for time saving on mesh generation step Alternatively mesh surface type allows 21 General workflow to create orthomosaic for less common yet quite demanded applications like orthomosaic generation for facades of the buildings or other models that might be not referenced at all Blending mode Mosaic default implements approach with data division into several frequency domains which are blended independently The highest frequency component is blended along the seamline only each further step away from the seamline resulting in a less number of domains being subject to blending Average uses the weighted average value of all

Agisoft PhotoScan User Manual - Professional Edition, Version 1.2

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