Skip to main content

Amazing software creates 3D models from images and videos

Sometime ago I wrote about a technique the animation industry and the game industry often use to eliminate a bulk of the back-breaking work of 3D modeling. Instead of building models from scratch using software, they build actual models out of clay or other materials and scan these physical models using a setup called 3D scanner. The 3D scanner then constructs a digital, three dimensional model of the real object which can be used in games, movies or any other application. You can even create your own cheap 3D scanner at home using free software.

Building models out of clay is definitely easier than building models in software. Recently I stumbled upon an even easier and amazing method to create models –using still images or videos. Actually there are two software that employ this method.

insight3d is an open source and free software that lets you create 3D models from a series of photographs. You give it a series of photos of a real scene or object from different angles and it automatically calculates the positions in space from which each photo has been taken (plus camera’s optical parameters) along with a 3D point-cloud of the scene. It then creates a 3D mesh polygonal model of the software which you can import into any 3D modeling software and finish the rest of the job.

Here is one example.

villa1 villa2 villa3

insight3d

The software is available for Windows and a Linux version is in the works.

The second software is the most astonishing one. The software called VideoTrace is capable of creating digital 3D models from actual videos of the model. The modeler simply traces the outline of the models over the video frames and the software magically extracts whatever the user traced, out from the video, complete with the exact graphics. It’s mind blowing! Watch the video.

VideoTrace’s application is going to be endless from architectural engineering to games and movies. VideoTrace is still in beta stages and not available for public download. The website also doesn’t indicate whether this software will be released as a freeware or as commercial. 

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

How to Record CPU and Memory Usage Over Time in Windows?

Whenever the computer is lagging or some application is taking too long to respond, we usually fire up task manager and look under the Performance tab or under Processes to check on processor utilization or the amount of free memory available. The task manager is ideal for real-time analysis of CPU and memory utilization. It even displays a short history of CPU utilization in the form of a graph. You get a small time-window, about 30 seconds or so, depending on how large the viewing area is.
17 comments
Read more

How to Schedule Changes to Your Facebook Page Cover Photo

Facebook’s current layout, the so called Timeline, features a prominent, large cover photo that some people are using in a lot of different creative ways. Timeline is also available for Facebook Pages that people can use to promote their website or business or event. Although you can change the cover photo as often as you like, it’s meant to be static – something which you design and leave it for at least a few weeks or months like a redesigned website. However, there are times when you may want to change the cover photo frequently and periodically to match event dates or some special promotion that you are running or plan to run. So, here is how you can do that.
1 comment
Read more

Diagram 101: Different Types of Diagrams and When To Use Them

Diagrams are a great way to visualize information and convey meaning. The problem is that there’s too many different types of diagrams, so it can be hard to know which ones you should use in any given situation. To help you out, we’ve created this diagram that lays out the 7 most common types of diagrams and when they’re best used:
Post a Comment
Read more