In this article:
- Quality Improvements to Support High-Resolution, Close Range Projects
- Higher Quality Orthophoto
- New Option to Use Reference Project to Improve Project Alignment
- Export Undistorted Photos
- Performance Improvements
- Quality Report API
- Usability Improvements
- AT/Reconstruction Area Buffer
- AWS Improvements: Fuser Throttling and Tagging
- Bug Fixes and Stability Improvements
Quality Improvements to Support High-Resolution, Close Range Projects
With PhotoMesh 7.8, you can build ultra-realistic, close range 3D models such as towers, bridges, factories and more. The latest PhotoMesh features several enhancements for working with close range, sub-centimeter data collections:
- Modifications of aerotriangulation process to support data collection of close-range objects such as towers and antennas.
- Automatic identification and cleaning of sky background
- Better sharpening and modeling of thin elements such as poles and pipes to produce higher quality, detailed point clouds and mesh models
- Noise reduction around edges of complex models
- Improved model quality across all levels of resolution pyramid
Higher Quality Orthophoto
Quality-optimized image compression produces cleaner and higher quality orthophoto output. New preset offers the following advantages:
- Higher quality texture resolution:
- Higher compression rate for the photos
- Higher compression rate for the final ortho
- Improved quality for ortho texturing
- Sharper building edges
- Reduced noise
New Option to Use Reference Project to Improve Project Alignment
This mechanism automatically geo-references a new project based on the aerotriangulation results of a previously built project, to ensure both projects are completely aligned.
- This tool can be particularly useful for multiple flights over the same area. Ground control points, or high accuracy GPS locations (RTK, PPK) can be used for the first flight and then the Reference Project mechanism can be used to accurately register the other flights, even without GCPs or accurate location information.
- The Reference Project mechanism can ensure perfect horizontal and vertical alignment for visualization and difference comparison tools.
- The Reference Project can also be used with partially overlapping projects. For best success, the same sensor and flight pattern should be used for both projects although the Reference Project mechanism can support different sensors and patterns
Export Undistorted Photos
New option to save the undistorted photos calculated in the AT process, when exporting AT results. During the photo preparation steps, PhotoMesh calculates the photos’ distortion parameters (that result from most cameras lens properties) and uses these parameters to undistort the photos so that feature matching and other AT sub-steps can be performed properly.
Performance Improvements
- Close range project memory usage optimized for 16GB machines
- Optimized production time for close range projects
- Overall performance improvements accelerate production
Quality Report API
PhotoMesh provides a REST API for PM Production to automate the production phases, e.g., load photo files or list, set AT and reconstruction areas, begin and manage a build, and create new build versions. PhotoMesh 7.8 features the addition of a new method to the API for generation of a report in JSON format with information about the general project, photo collections, AT results, control points, reference projects and reconstruction results.
Usability Improvements
- Close range navigation - Improved 3D navigation to support close range and vertical objects
- Relative path – Project can be copied or moved to a new folder or drive location after any build step. It can then be resumed from any step from its new location
AT/Reconstruction Area Buffer
New options make it easier to set the appropriate area for aerotriangulation, especially in close-range projects. The area of the project on which PhotoMesh should perform aerotriangulation can now be calculated automatically by PhotoMesh based on all the project’s photos plus a buffer in meters that is either based on the collections’ maximum effective range or a set value that you define.
AWS Improvements: Fuser Throttling and Tagging
- Throttling – New Launch Rate setting lets you control the maximum number of fuser instances launched per minute, e.g. if Maximum Instances was set to 200, and the Launch Rate to 50, the Build Manager will spread the launch of the fusers over 4 minutes. This prevents a potential bottleneck that could be caused by a large number of fusers attempting to read the build data at the same time.
- Tagging – New user-defined tags added to fuser properties to help you easily identify a fuser instance in the Amazon EC2 console after it is launched.
Bug Fixes and Stability Improvements
- Resolved issue causing LiDAR bounding box to float above point cloud data
- Resolved issue causing orthophoto generation to fail when tile size exceeded 50,000 pixels.
- Resolved issue causing build to fail in projects with more than 4,000 LiDARs
- Fixed bug that caused LiDARs to disappear from project after changing their coordinate system and then reopening the project
- Fixed bug that resulted in control point editor sometimes opening showing an “Overflow error”
- Corrected issue that caused a build to fail when generating orthophoto output with 'Mesh Vertical Bias' preset
- Failed photos are now included in the calculated lists of the Control Point Editor, with their name marked in red and a tooltip to inform the user that they were not calculated in the AT process.
- Resolved bug relating to control point sampling error variance
- Fixed bug affecting display of table in CSV/TXT Importer
- Fixed bug affecting display of orthophoto on white background
- Corrected bug causing white dots to display on PhotoMesh window when using the shortcut keyboard combination to open a tile's folder