Project Photofly

[#1]

Am I correct in assuming that the following scenario is possible using Photofly?

By standing int the middle of a future site; or in the center or a room and shooting photos in a 360-degree circle, I would assume that it is possible to create a cyclorama, of sorts, that can be imported into Revit (or Acad).  This could be used as background for a new building or as a guide for the ion of Revit objects within an interior space.  Camera views placed within the Revit model would have realistic and accurate entourage in the background.  Aside from basic presentation graphics, this could serve as a great tool for orienting a building relative within an existing context or toward specific views.

[#2]

IMHO the real goal would be to create a 3D environment into which the Revit building would be placed. In doing so, when you looked through the windows of the Revit building, you would see the environment outside.

[#3]

Scott:

In using the phrase "the real goal would be", are you suggesting that it doesn't work that way at present?  If not, then why not?  From what I see/read, this is entirely possible. 

I am still trying to grasp HOW the Photofly technology might be utilized in a real-world architectural design process.

Mike

[#4]

The purpose of Project Photofly is to be able to create 3D models for importing into applications like AutoCAD. I view this as different from texture mapping a panoramic scene on some geometry to get the same effect. In theory I could encase a Revit model in a cylinder and texture map the cylinder wallls with my photographs. When looking through the windows from inside the Revit model, I would see my photographs. Instead of that, the real goal is to cerate a 3D model based on pictures of an existing landscape, structure, or object.

[#5]

This is one of the things that is briefly touched on in the tutorial documents and videos for Photofly.

While you can do this, you need to change your mental model of what is going on.  Many people are influenced by their experience with the creation of panoramic images from a set of smaller images.  Autodesk has a product that does panoramas called "Autodesk Stitcher", and there are several other products that do something similar.  In a panorama creation scenario (like with Autodesk Stitcher) the most optimal way to create the photos is to place the camera on a tripod in the center of the room and take multiple pictures where you rotate the camera around an axis that is as near to the plane of the camera's "film" as possible.  Each photo should overlap with the photo to the left and the photo to the right.  As such any particular object in the room is generally only seen in either a single shot, or at most two shots (where two photos overlap from left to right).

When using PhotoFly and the Photo Scene Editor, we are not making a panorama.  In this case we need to see every object multiple times (3 or hopefully many more) from different camera locations.  So rather than keeping the camera at a fixed position and spinning on an axis, the camera needs to move so we can create triangulations on the objects.  Rather than just overlapping pictures on the left and right side by some amount (whereby specific objects are only "seen" once or twice) we need each object to be seen multiple times from multiple camera locations.  From that we compute the camera positions, and from that we compute the 3D coordinates for the objects we see.

For this reason a wide angle lens can help so that there are many features in each shot that can be successfully matched to lots of other features found in other shots.  If you use a very zoomed-in view then there are few "global orientation" reference points to work with.

So in summary, you _can_ do what you want, but if you take your pictures incorrectly (too many object occlusions, poor photo scheduling, etc.) you will get poor results.  Don't think like "panoramas", think like "triangulations".

I hope this helps...

-Brian Mathews

[#6]

I can't speak for everyone Brian, but that's a great help, thank you very much.