Superimposing aerial photographs

[TienievR]

Is it possible to superimpose an aerial photograph of a site onto a created Toposurface, similar to the photomatching on Sketchup?

[edward_saota]

Would also like to know how to do this...

[clemons171]

Even Better, drape the photo on top of the toposurface.  Is this possible?

[Jillian.Bejtlich]

That would be an amazing functionality and I would definitely like to see that in Revit as well! That being said, there isn't currently any way to drape an aerial image over a topography. The best you can currently do is import a site image, align it correctly, and make it display as foreground or background in a plan view.

If you'd like to see this added a feature, I'd really recommend quickly putting your suggestion in this form: http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/index?siteID=123112&id=1109794. This information does go to the product development teams, so it will be heard!

Thanks!

~Jillian

[TienievR]

Hi Jillian

I managed to drape an aerial photo over my topography but it was a mission - create a default material, use the image as the material, mirror it, scale it, postion it... nightmare.

The link you posted opens to THIS PAGE CANNOT BE FOUND...

I've tried to add an image of the end results but it doesn't seem to upload properly...

[rnbhat]

I would definately like to see your Image.
Kindly post the image.

[edward_saota]

I also previously tried doing this.. but was to inconsistent and problematic...

[TienievR]

Yes it does give you an inconsistent result especially when you render the image you never get the same result as you see in your REALISTIC view...  Attached are two JPEGS of the final result.

[edward_saota]

Wow.. that looks good! Must have been very difficult though...

[TienievR]

Thanks... it was a nightmare to get it just right but I couldn't render the model due to the photograph material I created shifting during the rendering process!  It was frustrating, luckily the REALISTIC view gives you a good impression of the final product.

[shawn]

If you can find the time, you should really consider creating a turtorial on how you did this. It think it would be very valuable to the community. The fact that the model won't render is, I don't think, a big deal, as is the model reads very well and is much more realistic than using a "grass" or general vegetation rendering material.

I understand your basic approach from what you posted, but you must have learned a few hard lessons along the way that would be helpful to pass along. Perhaps others might even improve upon the process, then we won't have to wait for Autodesk.

Nice work,

SG.

[TienievR]

I'll definitely draw a tutorial, it'll take a liitle time but I'll post it as soon as I'm done... but in the meantime if you want to try it out for yourself just remember, SCALE is the key.  From that you can nudge and rotate the image till it fits!

Its a mission but you've seen the end result.

Good luck and I'll keep you posted.

[shawn]

If you scale the original 2d aerial photo as an underlay below the 3d topo, before you try to attach the image to the material, does that help you get the scale correct, or does the 3d topo deform the 2d image too much for that to be useful?

SG

[TienievR]

I haven't tried it that way yet... technically it shouldn't warp the image out of proportion!

Try it let me know!

[astamant]

I was reading the post regarding superimposing Aerial photos over topography and I wonder if you could give me more information regarding the process that you used.  I have created a material with the Aerial but the image is mirrored.  I noticed that you mentioned mirroring the image in your material, but I cannot find a way to do that?  Am i missing something, or does the mirroring need to be done in Photoshop?

[TienievR]

Hi Astamant

It's been quite a while I posted this remark... I should actually start putting together that tutorial...

I've tried tracing back my steps and found that I couldn't mirror the image in the image editor in Revit the way I used to... basically it was as simple as easy as setting the scale X & Y values with negative values... like you would do when free transforming an image in photoshop...

I can only conclude that after they replaced the scale (X & Y) function with the latest sample sizes (height & width), you need to mirror the image in Photoshop first, as you suggested.

Remember if you want to create a bump of the rendered image to take your mirrored image, de-saturate it and then shift the contrast to the maximum, to give a crisp black & white image - then just add the B&W image to the bump tab image and repeat what you did in the regular image.

Hope this helps...

Tienie

[constantin.stroescu]

I use to insert a perspective image made in revit into a background image the following steps:

• First I make a new sheet in wich : Insert > Import >Image ...scale the image till the desired dimension
• Prepare then a perspective view of the toposurface and buildings placed on it  .Try to make it  approx the angle from wich the image shot was made.
• Back in the sheet where the background was set
• Drag the 3d perspective view created from Project Browser into the sheet, put it over the background image
• Select the 3d viewport and with RC or from Viewport  > Activate View..
• Now using View Object Wheel from Navigation Bar , orbit, zoom, pan ......till the 3d view fits on the background image...it is a good option to make on override -transparency on the object (or a wireframe) till you finish the positioning
• Back in 3d View...lock it ...render it and save it in png....
• Open Photosop and on a layer the background photo on another the png file (with transparence mask) over it...

 see a tutorial that I made some time ago under Autodesk Chronicle  : Rendering with background Image  ...https://chronicle.autodesk.com/Main/Details/3bcca7bf-bee6-4849-b958-f3cd6da07a99