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E57 exported from Recap (structured) do not properly encode spherical images

E57 exported from Recap (structured) do not properly encode spherical images

Enhancement request on behalf of customer

 

Product:  ReCap Pro

Function:  Project Export

Feature: E57 exported from Recap (structured) do not properly encode spherical images

 

Request:

Unfortunately regardless of who is right or wrong, it simply does not work in the reality of our business and Recap is not usable as a product in a meaningful work flow for us as of now without a compatible E57 export. Great potential in terms of the product, but the data is locked up in Recap for us and we cannot get it out of it for our use.

 

Regarding BLK360, that's good to hear, but the simple fact is still that given the way that Recap does it exports, we will not be able to export the panorama images with pose information! So we cannot use them with other software as we intended to. In short, this would eliminate any use of the BLK360 for us and may require us to cancel our order. There is also no EXR / RAW type panorama export from what we have seen in the current version so that's not a feasible export option either (on top of those files loosing the camera pose information). The end product of Recap for us is not viewing panoramas in Recap. Hope that makes sense.

 

You mentioned Faro. Faro Scene's E57 export has the exact same issue and will loose this information in other industry software. They do have an E57 with image tags on the E57 standard site as the Faro example, but Scene itself also misses image tags.

 

As a side note: Faro Scene does support exporting panoramas, but then the pose information goes missing unfortunately.

At least one can load the panoramas into a photo or paint type application with Faro.

 

The E57 export with image tags would be the most urgent one to unblock us.

 

The ability to export a FBX including cameras and mage back planes, plus a layered projection shader referring to all back images and projection cameras included, would also greatly help to work with the data. We could then load resulting meshes together with the cameras in Maya and Mudbox for texture painting. We need to fix the model with mesh editing/modeling tools and then re-project the spherical images as well as other images as textures.

Currently, there is no way we are aware of to get the panoramas exported to Maya. Do you know of any way?

Also support for point clouds in Maya would help a lot as the modelling tools are quite good (snap to point).

This type of missing functionality causes us to have to use a lot of other software in the workflow unfortunately..

 

As a side note, the raw/EXR type panorama export in Recap with e.g. camera pose information in text files (land xml, bundler, etc.) would be helpful as well (to export all spherical cameras at once). There is several tools that can load bundler tools. And EXR would allow to get the RAW images with multiple exposures into programs like Photoshop.

 

Thanks again. Hope this helps as feedback of how to make Recap an even more powerful tool!

 

 

Edited by
Discussion_Admin

 

9 Comments
aliasense
Enthusiast

E57 export with image tags so we can load the full panoramas, at full resolution, with camera poses into other packages for texturing meshes (such as 3DReshaper and Reality Catpure) is key. Otherwise, it either does not load the images at all, or leaves black areas where there was no 3D point cloud. Also the resolution may be lower than the image due to storing solely the point cloud (spare point cloud and high resolution source panoramas). 

 

Finally, with the proper e57 files and the full EXR or at least PNG panorama images stored we could write a little script to load this data into Maya as well.

sgrisez
Advocate

I have exported E57 and reimported them back into ReCap.  I expect this is talking about something else.  Is that right? or is export to E57 in 4.0 broken.  Regardless, I fully support correct export to E57. 

aliasense
Enthusiast
When you import the e57s from Recap into other software such as 3Dreshaper and Reality Capture, the files loose the image panoramas. Recap generates the panoramas for e57 based on the point cloud somehow instead of storing the raw source images, which may also impact resolution when the point cloud resolution is different from the image capture resolution. Finally certain e57 files from Recap will have gaps in other software since that software will only import the points where there was actual 3d point cloud information vs the full image. This is also evident with the BLK360 example E57 which has some black gaps when loaded and viewing the panorama into Recap. If the image is eg 160 Mpixel, and the point cloud is low resolution, do we loose resolution upon e57 export given Recap does not export the source images but only the point cloud?
sgrisez
Advocate

"we will not be able to export the panorama images with pose information!"

 

What is the camera pose information?

 

"So we cannot use them with other software as we intended to."

What software?  I'm interested in knowing what others are doing with these panoramas.

 

"In short, this would eliminate any use of the BLK360 for us and may require us to cancel our order."

This is a big statement.  I'm a little nervous about this. I also in line for a BLK360.  Can you clarify?

 

There is also no EXR / RAW type panorama export.  So is the only export for the pano in Jpg, which does not allow the end user to make adjustments to the HDR imagery.  This would be really valuable, in particular if another app can do the image adjustments and re-imported back into ReCap or maybe kept in another program as just a panorama.  Maybe for use in PTGUI or something else.

 

"from what we have seen in the current version" - Are these issues in 3.0 or 4.0? or both?

 

"The end product of Recap for us is not viewing panoramas in Recap." - Would always be great to export to other programs as to not require the use of ReCap.

sgrisez
Advocate
It would be really nice if ReCap would export the images and not just the point cloud.
aliasense
Enthusiast

"What is the camera pose information?"

The camera translation, rotation, and other camera parameters in the same coordinate system as the point cloud.

 

"What software?  I'm interested in knowing what others are doing with these panoramas."

3DReshaper (e.g. to create mesh, model simplified mesh, and then re-project the panoramas as texture export as OBJ e.g. to Maya or Flame or Mudbox or Nuke etc.)

Reality Capture (e.g. combine with DSLR photos with photogrammetry for auto-alignment, and then re-project the panoramas as textures, export as OBJ or FBX e.g. to Maya or Flame or Mudbox or Nuke etc.)

 

If we had EXR or PNG or at least JPG full panorama export with camera pose, we may be also to recreate image planes and camera in Maya for texturing. Maya and other software can project images from a camera onto an object to texture it.

 

Laserscans typically require some fixing up for visualization e.g. Windows or reflective surfaces may be partially missing as the laser may not get returned, so we need to model those parts (often just simple flat polygons). Also the topology of meshes created through Recap have issues that make them "messy" and slow to render (e.g. 3D paint program may have difficulty with the topology to fill in texture holes e.g. where a scanner did not reach). So it helps to re-model based on the point cloud with another package. E.g. a flat surface or wall may require very few triangles, while a complex shape may really need more. Meshing tools often put a lot of triangles everywhere instead. Now if you model in another package to fill holes, gaps, or simplify geometry, we need to then re-project textures as there is no color information otherwise on the new mesh. Hence, we need the panorama export. Also some software offers ways to project DSLR photos for additional close-up detail.

 

"This is a big statement.  I'm a little nervous about this. I also in line for a BLK360.  Can you clarify?"

There is no way for us to get the full panorama images as of now into another software we use - unless Recap adds this feature.

Also there is no EXR / RAW or even JPG export that automatically exports all the panoramas e.g. to load them into Photoshop that we are aware of. We need to make corrections to the images, and be able to use the full images in other software to create projections.

I think you can export like a jpeg screenshot of the current view (but that's it) and it's not the full panorama.

Also when you import an E57 it will generate panoramas from the point cloud (not images), check out the BLK360 sample and the black lines near the windows and the missing sky when you click on the realview bubble. Apparently, this is not a problem if one scans straight with Recap and Autodesk confirmed that we will then have a full panorama image, but the question remains is how we can load these images into our other software. Some software such as Faro Scene creates panoramas based on the point cloud information, but the packages above do not. Reality Capture keeps parts black where there's no 3D points in the E57 files from Recap, and 3DReshaper does not load the Recap E57 for texturing at all. We are also concerned about resolution as the point cloud may be lower resolution vs. the full panorama image. Not sure how it works as the software (Faro, Recap) generates their panoramas from the point cloud data and not real saved full resolution HDR images embedded.

 

"Are these issues in 3.0 or 4.0? or both?"

We discovered these issues with 4.0. I assume it was the same before.

 

"Would always be great to export to other programs as to not require the use of ReCap."

Yes, especially as Recap has no modelling tools and no way to re-texture a mesh that was fixed in another software. Meshing only offers three options: low, medium, high resolution and it's all cloud based (blocking the app while the files are uploading - which are of course huge and take quite some time even with a fast connection). There's currently also a limit to mesh a max area of 30x30x30 meters, which means you have to manually pick different regions by hand and mesh them one by one if you want to mesh a larger project.

aliasense
Enthusiast

Here's some other people struggling apparently with the image export from Recap:

https://laserscanningforum.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=44&t=11740&p=62370

"As far as I can tell, it contains the point clouds but no image..." it says

mjacob6FXLZ
Community Visitor

 I have been looking for a possibility to export images for quite some time. It would be great to have this feature available. 

arjanCNMG8
Observer

What is the status of this feature?

We want to integrate Recap in our workflow where we need e57 files with images, position and orientation.

 

 

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